The Boys Are Back
by Obstreperous Wookie
Summary: [Riley Adventure 4] When Riley and Finn's Hunt takes a turn for the worse, Riley wakes up in a hospital-missing a timeline, missing some of her memories, and missing Finn. The only thing she isn't missing is a pair of unhappy Winchester brothers, currently in her hospital room and staring her down.
1. You Suck, Finn McAllister

A/N: And Riley is back! Boom shaka-laka! **Bonus fandom points if you can tell me what monster she's Hunting.** :) Totally had to research for this one. And by research I mean re-watch old episodes. Such a burden. :P Anyways, Winchester involvement in imminent. Meh heh heh. Enjoy!

* * *

ONE DAY BEFORE THE INCIDENT

Metal clattered and creaked underfoot as I raced across the warehouse roof.

To my left, a piece of roofing broke free and fell, clacking loudly as it went. I could hear it smash and clatter all the way down to the ground, knowing very well that I could be following it at any second. "Oh my gosh, Finn," I screamed over my shoulder at him, completely pissed, "this is so freaking dangerous." But I might have used a higher caliber word than "freaking."

Hopping from section to section, I picked up speed. "Why the heck didn't you just take me on a normal date?" I screamed. Then I spun to glance behind me, looking past Finn and bringing my gun up to squeeze off three quick shots at the blurred shape of our pursuer.

"Geez, woman! Point that thing at someone else," he yelled, still hunched defensively under his arms as he ran, never breaking stride.

"I _am_ pointing it at someone else, you...you, turd." It was the only insult I could think of at the time. Finn passed me quickly, grabbing my hand and catapulting me forward again as he ran by. "You suck," I puffed, unable to say anything more due to lack of breath. I was in great shape, but this was ridiculous.

We were running for our lives against freaking bite-y ladies. _They hunt in pairs, so there'll only be two_, Finn had said. _We can take out two easily enough._

And we had. There had been a pair, and we had taken them out fairly easily using silver knives. Stab, twist, done. Except there hadn't just been two. Two pairs, yes. Two monsters total, no. We'd lost the element of surprise, and they'd turned out to be a whole lot stronger than either of us. Finn had been tackled, and I had lost my silver knife trying to keep him from getting bitten. I'd missed the thing's heart, but I'd gotten her off him. After that, Finn and I had done the sensible thing. We'd gotten out while the getting was good.

They weren't fast like vampires, but they liked to bite, and they had venom, some kind of paralytic, which made things a lot of fun. For them—not for us—which is why Finn and I were currently fleeing for our lives while the remaining two monsters hunted us down like stray dogs. It was awesome, really. What girl didn't want to spend her Friday night picking her way across a rooftop and possibly dying a horrible death? Oh, wait. Probably every freaking girl on the planet—myself included.

"You know, when you asked if I wanted to hang out today, you could have told me we were Hunting. Because really, nothing brings two people closer together than killing things together," I told him, skidding to a stop. We had reached the end of our current section of roofing and were now facing another section, only this one was raised higher than either of us could jump.

I shoved my gun into its shoulder holster before setting my feet and cradling my hands so I could boost Finn up onto the next portion of roof. He backed up slightly then ran right up to me, using my hands as a springboard to launch himself upwards.

The lip was a good five feet above us, but teamwork trumped either of our limited parkour skills, so it wasn't a problem. Finn caught the edge and pulled himself up quickly before turning and offering me his hand so I could follow. "You really, really suck," I reiterated, dusting my hands off once I was up.

"Yeah, yeah. Heard you the first time," he growled, sounding only a little bit out of breath. Then we started to run again. Turd.

This part of the roof had dirt and gravel, along with a small metal structure containing a door and probably stairs. Cigarette butts were still abundant, even though the warehouse had been abandoned for years, so I gathered this was the "smoke break" spot of choice.

I pulled at the door, but it was both locked and rusted shut. Fantastic, there went my escape route of choice. Finn hammered on it with a few solid kicks and a manly slam of his shoulder. The door didn't even budge.

We ran around the structure, not making it more than a few steps before a lady vaulted up onto the roof behind us. She was tall—supermodel tall—and her hair was a coppery flood down her back. I was jealous until I realized that I was human, and she was not. Besides, there was coppery stain spreading down her shirt. It grew a little wider each second, and I was a little grossed out because I'd stabbed her, and it hadn't even seemed to bother her at all.

Maybe being human wasn't so bad.

Hair Lady let out a weird laugh as Finn and I came to a stop, all of us realizing we were out of rooftop to flee on. Finn said a bad word, but I just rubbed my hands on my jeans—ridding them of sweat—before retrieving my gun from my shoulder holster. We turned back to face Hair Lady, and I saw a small embroidered name on the shirt of her waitress uniform.

Charis. Wonderful, how was that even pronounced?

"Care-iss," I said slowly, holding one hand out in a placating manner as I took a step towards her. "We can work this out. Let's just talk about it."

Really, I had no intention to talk things out. But Charis was the younger of the two monsters, and I'd already tagged her once with my silver blade. So I figured she'd be less of a fight. And when her partner in crime—literally, since murder is about as criminal as it gets—showed up, Finn would take care of her since he still had a silver blade.

The door to the structure exploded outwards and skidded into the gravel, having been torn off its hinges by a single kick from the second bite-y lady. Yep, she was definitely going to be Finn's problem.

I moved a few steps to the left, away from Finn. "Now it's a party," I muttered, and with that, Charis let out a screech and rushed me.

Screeching before attacking—though completely normal and instinctive—was a terrible tactical decision. Whether or not there was a direct correlation between screeching and lack of thought devoted to follow-through, it wasn't very hard to counter Charis' attack. She came at me, almost flailing, and I danced to the left, using a backwards kick to smash my foot into the back of her knee as she went past me. Then I spun around, hands held in the ready position.

Charis snarled and turned awkwardly on her one and a half good legs, eyes suddenly very catlike and teeth spiking down. Bleck, she was definitely not winning America's Next Top Model looking like that.

Behind me, I could hear Finn and the other lady grunting and scuffling. Putting them out of my mind, I focused on Charis' next attack. She came in slower this time, more wary and less mobile. I held my fists up defensively, half frustrated with and half enjoying the thrill of a fight.

Sparring in the gym was fun, but real fights were something else entirely. The adrenaline, the fear, the sweat. Background distractions blurred out, and the only thing that mattered was the person across from me.

Sometimes people say that everything slows down in a fight. But that wasn't true. Everything is quick and dirty, and mistakes are costly, which is probably where the thrill comes from. I loved fighting. I loved it a little too much, I think.

Charis came at me, hands held like claws, and attempted to maybe claw my eyes out or something. I wondered if she'd ever really fought before, because superhuman strength doesn't save you when you don't know how to use it.

I lashed out with my left arm, more of a sweeping blow than anything else, and knocked her clawed hands aside. Then I took one step in and smashed a heavy right hook across her jaw. It was nothing like hitting practice pads, and pain flared across my knuckles. It was a good kind of pain, though, and savage satisfaction flooded through me when she stumbled backwards from the blow. I kicked out, not giving her a break, and slammed my foot into her thigh, sending her staggering again.

But for all my efforts, Charis just kept coming. She swung at me with a quick left, and I ducked. She must have expected that, though, because she grabbed two fistfuls of my jacket, and I was suddenly airborne.

I hit the ground a good five feet away, bouncing and rolling in the gravel. My jacket and jeans shielded me from the worst of the gravel, but it still hurt. Charis hesitated, maybe trying to collect herself and recover after her first successful offensive move. She really shouldn't have.

The woman Finn was fighting let out a scream, but it was abruptly cut off. He'd killed her, then. "Knife?" I yelled, unable to see him even as I pushed up onto my hands and knees and then into a crouch.

Finn appeared, leaning heavily against the corner of the structure with blood streaming down the side of his face. He was too far away to help me out, and worse, Charis was still between us. How inconvenient, I was going to have to get the knife somehow other than a handoff. I think Finn came to the same conclusion, because he hefted the knife in his hand, and then he tossed it to me.

The knife clattered to the ground and bounced, coming to a stop only a foot in front of me. For a second, Charis and I both froze, staring at the silver blade reflecting the fading sunlight. Then we exploded into motion.

Charis hobbled towards the knife, and I dove forward, snatching the blade up and tucking into a roll. I came out of the roll and went up on one knee, stabbing the blade upwards with both hands. The silver entered Charis' heart as she stooped down for the knife, and she shuddered to a stop with a choked gasp. I twisted my wrist before she had the chance to react, and she desiccated within seconds, crumbling into dust onto and around my hands.

"Oh my gosh. Did you see that?" I called to Finn, huffing and trembling. "Because I will…never be able…to do that again…in my life." Despite my ragged breathing, I was utterly impressed with myself for pulling off a Hollywood-worthy fight move. The tuck-and-roll, the upward impalement—classic action movie material.

"I might have missed it," Finn wheezed. He was back out of sight again, so he also missed my baleful glare.

I dropped onto my butt and let the knife clatter back onto the gravel. I was still full of adrenaline from the fight, but I wasn't ready to stand just yet. "You suck," I told him scathingly between breaths. "You totally suck."

Despite my earlier allegations of Finn sucking, he totally made up for it by having pizza ready for us by the time we got back to the motel. I paid the delivery guy and waited until he'd left before helping Finn out of the car.

The cut on the side of Finn's head had stopped bleeding, but there was still a wash of dried blood leading down his face, and it looked garish. Plus, I think the second bite-y lady had also nailed him in the ribs, because as I slipped under his shoulder to help, he was definitely favoring his left side.

While we slowly made our way from the car to the room, I thought about what a good thing it was that we were staying at a motel, because here, no one cared if you came in covered in blood. If this were a hotel, I was pretty sure there would be at least four concerned bystanders prepared to help, and two of them would have already called 911. Pshh, people—so inconvenient sometimes.

Bumping the door open with my hip, I scooted the two of us inside before pulling up short. There was one bed in the room. It was a Queen sized bed, but there was still only one. "Well, this is awkward," I said, wondering if Finn had mistakenly ordered just one.

I said nothing for a beat, still uncertain what to make of the single bed conundrum. Maybe he was trying to tell me something. I shook my head, pushing that thought out of my head. Or maybe it was just a mistake, and I was totally over thinking it. Yeah, that was probably the case.

"I'll take the floor," he said with a heavy sigh, and he disentangled himself from me, hobbling forward. Then Finn turned, a second later, scowling as he wrapped his arm over his ribs again. "What, no exacerbating my misogyny? No complaining that I am cheapening your feminist ideals?"

My eyebrows shot up. "Nope," I said with a slight grin. "I happen to enjoy chivalry. Makes me feel like a lady."

Finn looked me up and down with a skeptical expression. I followed his gaze and took in my heavy boots, dark jeans, and gun under my faded army surplus jacket. "Uh," I faltered. Yeah, I wasn't even remotely lady-like right now, but that had never stopped me before. "Just…whatever. Shut up."

I let him stew for a little bit—in the contemplation of having to sleep on the floor. Then I took mercy on him. "Anyways, I can sleep on the floor tonight." I held a hand up when he looked like he was going to protest. "Chivalry aside, the least injured person—" I pointed a thumb at myself, just for emphasis "—gets to sleep on the rock hard surface. The broken person gets the nice, soft bed."

Finn's look of protest disappeared, and he gingerly sat down on the end of the bed. Then he let out a giant sigh, this time in relief. _Yeah, that's what I thought_, I thought snootily. But I didn't mean it. In the spectrum of things that upset me, sleeping on the floor didn't really even make the list.

"You okay?" Finn asked, out of the blue. The hand resting on his thigh twitched up to motion at my jacket. I looked down, surprised, and noticed some blood on my sleeve.

"Oh, yeah, just a scratch. Nothing a little antiseptic won't fix." It _was_ just a scratch, but I neglected to mention just how big it mostly likely was. When Charis had thrown me, part of my sleeve had been pushed back, and the gravel had scraped some of my arm raw. I didn't know how bad it was, and I wasn't very concerned. Finn's ribs were the bigger problem.

Ribs were always tricky. Most of the time, it was just bruises that caused aches that lasted for days. But sometimes, it was fractures, and fractures could mean bad things for internal organs.

"Ribs?" I asked casually, trying not to sound like a mother hen.

"They're fine," he grunted.

I chewed on my lip. "Pain? On a scale of one to ten."

He lay backward on the bed, letting out another sigh and releasing his ribs. "Four."

Four. Which meant, in man-terms, the pain was probably a seven or an eight. "Okay, I'll get you some Ibuprofen, and then we can check out the cut on your head." I tried to sound casual about the whole thing, but inwardly I was freaking out that he might need stitches again. And who would have to give him stitches? Oh wait, me. Again. My stomach turned at the thought, but I pushed through it, going out to my car to get my first aid kit.

It wasn't really a kit anymore. It was more like a tote. I had taken all the medical supplies out of my now-deceased "Libby Adventure Survival Kit," and they were now in my improved tote. The basics were still there, but I had a lot more supplies, and I had either used the stuff before or researched how to use them, so that when the time came, I would be ready. In theory, anyhow.

Medical stuff, I was fine with. It was the blood that got to me. I wasn't very good with blood. For a second, I wondered if it was genetic, because my entire family was kind of squeamish when it came to blood.

I sobered at that last, almost laughable, thought. Genetics. I was actually adopted, and my biological father had turned himself into a vampire on purpose. So no, it probably wasn't genetics.

Losing my good mood, I went back inside with the tote. "Sit up?" I asked Finn politely, almost clinically. He struggled upright, and I pulled out some rubbing alcohol, upending the bottle in order to soak the small cotton pad held over the opening. Then I placed a careful hand on Finn's head, swabbing the cut with alcohol. He hissed in discomfort but didn't move.

Once I'd cleared the cut and the surrounding area of blood, I stepped back thoughtfully. "No stitches," I reported, deeming them unnecessary. Utilizing the pause between diagnosis and treatment, I gave him a couple of pills. He thought they were Ibuprofen, but they were actually some very nice, low-grade pain pills. Nothing too fancy.

"Oh thank God," Finn said, letting out a breath of exaggerated relief. "I didn't want the Butcher of Oregon messing up my pretty face." But he took the pills from me and downed them without a second thought.

"Very funny. Turd," I muttered, shooting the bloody pad like a basketball at the metal trashcan. I put a quick butterfly bandage on the cut and started to put my stuff away, but Finn caught my hand.

"Arm?" he dutifully reminded me.

"Oh, yeah." I had completely forgotten. I shrugged out of my jacket, taking extra care while easing the sleeve over my arm. Then I grimaced, catching sight of what looked like the world's worst rug burn tracing up the outside of my wrist and arm. It really wasn't that bad, but I knew the rubbing alcohol was going to sting like crazy. "Maybe you better…" I mumbled, looking at the ground.

Finn caught my drift, and he soaked another pad in alcohol, taking my arm gently but firmly. I wrinkled my nose and closed my eyes, waiting. Then he started cleaning, and it hurt way more than getting the scrape in the first place. But I was silent the whole time, and after it was done, I cheered internally for my stoic demeanor.

"Boom," I said, when Finn threw the pad away. "Pizza time." I smeared some antibiotic cream over the whole mess and slapped a bandage on, more interested in eating than fixing myself.

Finn had already eaten two pieces by the time I took one from the box. He'd ordered half Hawaiian, half pepperoni pizza, and the whole time we ate, he made fun of me for liking fruit on my pizza. I mocked him for eating beef and pork that had been mashed together and then seasoned out of this world. He didn't understand until I told him that's what pepperoni was. Then he just looked kind of scandalized.

By the time ten o'clock rolled around, we went to bed like a couple of old fogeys. I crawled into my sleeping bag, and Finn eased into the bed.

"'Night," I said quietly.

"'Night," he murmured back.

Then we were out, like a couple of very boring, very cliché lights. Yep, that was us. Taking care of monsters, some minor First Aid, chowing down on pizza, and then sleeping. This was not how I'd first imagined spending the day when Finn had called me. But still, it was nice.

_Not a bad third date_, my sleep-infused brain managed to squeak out as I drifted off. _Oh, shut up,_ I told myself, settling happily into my sleeping bag.

Little did I know, it was all about to change.


	2. Crap Hits The Proverbial Fan

Disclaimer: Sam and Dean are not mine.

A/N: If anyone wanted to know, the things Riley Hunted last chapter were Vetalas. They were first seen in season 7. Anyways. Enjoy.

* * *

DAY OF THE INCIDENT

Finn woke up at the ungodly hour of six. I, being a light sleeper, was forced into consciousness entirely too early to be cordial to him.

He left, and I couldn't have cared less. I went back to sleep, having already set multiple alarms on my phone to wake me up incrementally. By the time Finn came back, I was a little more ready to be nice. "Morning," he said cheerfully, dropping some grocery bags onto the table.

"Ehh," I grunted in return, which was kind of my version good morning.

Finn walked over to where I was sitting in my sleeping bag. It took a solid minute, and several uncomprehending blinks, to realize he was holding a cup out to me—a paper cup with a black lid. Oh! Coffee. I liked coffee.

"Ah, there it is," Finn said with a laugh. "You get the same goofy grin whenever coffee is present."

No I didn't. I covered my mouth, and yes, it really was curved into a grin. Dang it. My grin turned into a scowl, but that only made Finn laugh again. Turd.

Then Finn sobered. "So, the real reason I asked you to come to Michigan was because a friend of mine called. Says he's got a problem on his island. Our kind of problem."

I narrowed my eyes, slogging through sleepiness and into intelligence. I focused on the most important part of his statement. "You have friends? One of them owns an island?" Never mind what the problem was, I was more interested in this island-owning friend of his.

"Haha, very funny. Yes, Riley, I have friends. Anyways, I'm not one hundred percent sure what we're Hunting, but if I'm right, all we need is some fire to take care of it." Fire. Heh, heh, heh—fire.

Finn hesitated, giving me a wary look. "Fire excites you just a little too much," he said slowly.

I shrugged one shoulder, not caring in the least.

"So," Finn said slowly. "How do you feel about boats?"

* * *

I hadn't understood just how badly boats mess up your hair. Or maybe it was just Finn's mad driving. I was surprised we even made it to the island in one piece. During the boat ride, I had wanted to tell Finn to stop driving in zigzags and circles, but I'd stopped myself. It was probably one of his few sources of actual fun, so I'd just let him do his thing.

By the time we got to the island, my hair had whipped me in the face enough that I pulled it back into a pony tail. Finn's hair remained in its casual "rolled out of bed" look, which made me wonder if he used hair gel. Interesting, something to file away for further thought later.

Finn slowed the boat down, gliding up to the dock with practiced ease. He showed me how to tie the ropes from the dock to the metal cleat on the boat. Then we climbed out. Well, Finn climbed out. I scrambled out, leaving my dignity in the boat as I ran down the dock onto solid ground. "Land! Sweet, precious land!" I called, loud enough that Finn would hear.

He laughed, strolling down the dock to join me and shoving my shoulder in response. Then we turned, watching as a guy came down a gravel path towards us. The guy was totally rocking jeans and cowboy boots with a workman's shirt, and there were heavy duty gloves on his hands.

When he finally reached us, his craggy face split into a giant grin. "Finn, good to see you. Thanks for coming on such short notice." He pulled his right glove off and wiped his hand on his jeans before shaking Finn's hand.

"Craig," was all Finn said in return. Craig pulled him in, and they bumped shoulders. It was a total guy greeting.

Then Craig turned to me and shook my hand as well. "Hi, there. You must be Finn's girlfriend."

Finn looked surprised, and it almost looked like he was blushing, but I couldn't tell in the woodsy, shadow-dappled lighting. "Oh, we're not dating. She's just a friend," he said casually. Craig glanced at me, brow furrowed. I rolled my eyes and nodded very slightly, mouthing the word "girlfriend" at him. The skin around his eyes crinkled in authentic mirth, and I matched his grin. We both knew it was true, and it was just a matter of time before Finn figured it out himself.

First unofficial date? We stopped a psychotic serial killer. Second unofficial date? Finn was "randomly passing through" Portland, and he took me to a shooting range. That was also the date where he gave me a gun. It was the little Glock I had been loaned at the warehouse. Third unofficial date? "Want to hang out Friday? I'm in Michegan." And here I was. I mean seriously, who just randomly asks a girl clear out to the middle of an island in the state of Michigan. Want to kill something together? Oh, she's just a friend.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that buddy. It'll hit you one of these days.

Without missing a beat, Craig changed the subject, and we all started up the wide gravel path. "There was another disappearance last night," he said solemnly. "This makes the second batch of missing folks in five years. At first I thought it might have been a black dog or maybe, just maybe, a skinwalker."

Finn nodded, as if those also made perfect sense. I was completely lost, having never heard of any of them. "But?" Finn posed, only when Craig had fallen silent.

"But I looked into the island's history. Five years ago, the owners went missing and were later found dead. It was written off as an animal attack, but nothing on this island is big enough for that. And you know skin changers, they roam, never sticking around. As for the black dog—didn't really fit. No electrical storms, no crossroads. Just doesn't feel right."

Finn nodded again, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully. "Yeah. Five years…how have the winters been?"

Craig shrugged. "Mild, nothing too bad."

"Light winters means it wouldn't have had to feed as often to survive. It would have been able to hibernate longer. Kinda does sound like a wendigo." Finn shook his head slowly. "Shit. Well, you know what that means, right?"

Craig nodded again. "Anasazi symbols around the house?"

"Anasazi symbols around the house," Finn confirmed grimly.

"Well, shit," Craig said, echoing Finn's sentiment. "Look, I got a wife. We just found out we have a kid on the way."

Finn shook his head again, raising his hands. "Hey, I understand. This is as far as you go. Just give us some terrain maps, and we'll be on our way. No hard feelings. Say hi to Leslie for me."

A little cabin came into sight and parked in front of it was a big, red truck. There were logs in the bed of the truck, and I wondered if Craig had been chopping down firewood when we'd arrived. It was beautiful out here. Tranquil, isolated. I wouldn't totally mind retiring out here like Craig was. He seemed a little young to be retiring, but maybe Hunting was a career where the timetable moved up quite a bit.

I thought back to what Sam had said to me a long time ago. _Hunters don't grow old and have families._ If I was reading this right, and I'd like to think that I was, Craig was a Hunter. Or at least he used to be. Now he had a family. So maybe Sam was wrong. Maybe Hunters could have normal lives.

Craig pulled out a rolled chart from the passenger side of his truck, and he handed it to Finn almost unhappily. Finn spread it out over the hood, his head bent over it in full concentration. Craig lingered, shifting in place and looking like he wanted to say something. "Don't," Finn warned, not even looking up. "Don't worry about it. This is why you called me." Craig pursed his lips, definitely unhappy now, and Finn finally looked up. "You got out," he said without any judgment. "You got out, and now you have a family. Let me do my job." He slapped Craig on the back, giving him a slight push towards the house. "Take a day off. Stay indoors. After you set up the circle, just stay inside until this blows over."

Craig nodded, hesitantly at first, then more decisively. "Yeah, okay. Good luck, and thank you." Finn waved, head already bent back over the map.

I moved up to his side, trying and failing to decode the map. All it had were weird circles on it. Oh wait, I knew this one! It was…it was an elevation map. Yeah! It showed the terrain and the elevations on the island. Hah, I _did_ know things.

Finn continued to mutter to himself, not bothering to explain what he was thinking. He traced a finger erratically around the map, occasionally tapping random spots and pursing his lips. I stood quietly at his side, not wanting to break his concentration.

"Gotcha," he finally said, spearing a single spot on the map with one finger and straightening.

I smiled politely, letting him know he better let me in on his one-person revelation before I did something drastic.

"Oh. Sorry," he said, catching my drift. "We're Hunting a wendigo. They like to hole-up in underground, isolated spots—like caves or mines. Usually they hibernate for years, only coming out to grab a few snacks and return home."

"Snacks as in bunny rabbits and mountain lions, or snacks as in the more human variety?" I already kind of knew, but a girl could hope.

"They're cannibals," Finn said abruptly. Oh. Wait, cannibals? As in humans eating other humans? I shuddered a little, getting a creepy crawly feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn't a good feeling.

"Say, good chap, um…" I scratched the back of my neck with a finger. "Are wendigos human?"

"Used to be," Finn said casually, rolling up the map. "Lore has it a wendigo was a person that at one time ate human flesh to survive and eventually turned into…well, what they are." Finn motioned to the path with a jerk of his elbow, and we started walking.

"And what, exactly, is a wendigo?" I hated going into this without knowing all the details. But Finn knew them, so that was going to have to be good enough for me. I didn't need to be a control freak about it. As long as he shared his information. Like right now.

"Humanoid, tall, usually well over ten feet. Grayish green skin. Emaciated. Like I said, they usually take the victim to their hiding place. They are incredibly fast and relatively intelligent. What else? Anasazi symbols can be used to repel them. Oh, and it's said that silver can kill them, but I've never actually talked to anyone that has killed one like that. We're using fire, since it's tried and true."

"Oh," I said faintly, wondering if this was out of my league. It was, probably. I chewed on my lip—a habit I'd been trying to break. So much for that. A weird, sideways thought occurred to me, and it upped the creep factor about fifty times. "Um, Finn, if Craig looked into the island's history, and he only found one other set of disappearances, then where did the wendigo come from?"

Finn pulled up short. "Huh," he intoned, tongue in cheek. "That is a very good question." Then he started walking again, leaving me to stew in uneasy silence. Did that not worry him? Because it worried me.

Finn really didn't seem worried as he helped me into the boat. He was even a little cheerful, wanting me to try driving for a little bit. I didn't feel like messing around, and I told him so very succinctly. I guess maybe we dealt with stress in different ways.

After that, Finn became more serious, and he piloted the boat efficiently around the island. He stopped only once, leaving us drifting along as he double checked the map. "There should be a little dock in the next mile or so. Let me know when you see it. I'll be watching the water since there is so much debris in this area. Anything big could damage the engine and leave us stranded."

"'K," I said quietly. It was an apology of sorts, for snapping at him before. He accepted it with a little nod and got us moving again.

He was right; the water was full of wood chunks and branches. Finn had to slow way down, but he still managed to steer around them with ease. I kept my eyes glued to the shore. "There it is," I called, when I finally spotted a tiny, not entirely sturdy looking dock. It didn't even seem like it should be called a dock, but technically, we _could_ dock at it. Finn brought us in slowly, and I stood at the bow, pushing against the wood pillars when the boat got to close.

Finn tied the boat up, and we got out, gingerly picking our way across the "dock" and onto the beach. We each had our packs with us, and Finn had the map. He pointed us in the right direction, and I tried to memorize the path we took into the woods so that I wouldn't look like an idiot trying to get out again.

Taking the lead, Finn kept a close eye on the map, navigating us through a fairly easy trek to our target. Finn and I didn't talk as we walked, but that was okay. We were at the point where silence was just comfortable. The fact that we were headed off to kill something that may very well be a better predator than us was also a bit sobering. All in all, it didn't make for the most chatty atmosphere.

It was still okay, though, because the forest was actually really cool. Everywhere I looked, things were vibrant and green. It was cool and kind of misty, and there was this feeling that things around us had a life of their own. I tilted my head up, searching for the sky. It was gray, save for a random spattering of sunbeams filtering through the clouds. The sights, sounds, smells—they made me feel small in the grand scheme of things.

I liked feeling small. I liked the feeling that the world would go on spinning regardless of my actions. And, considering that I went around killing monsters and fighting nightmares incarnate, feeling small wasn't even close to the worst feeling I could have.

"What are you thinking about?" Finn asked, out of the blue.

"Feeling small," I replied honestly, not even bothering to erect a basic filter for my utterly random thought process. That was the thing about Finn, I never felt like I had be different around him. Never had to play dumb, never had to dial down my nerdiness. I could just be me.

He was quiet for a long moment, and I stared worriedly at the back of his head. Would he think that was stupid? _Was_ it stupid? I didn't know. "Like that you're so small in the grand scheme of things that you can't possibly screw it all up?" he asked, his voice kind of rough.

"Yeah. Exactly." Maybe it wasn't stupid. Maybe I wasn't the only one who thought about that kind of thing.

"What, you don't want to change the world? You don't want to be famous?" He motioned to the left and held back a giant branch for me. I walked forward and turned, holding it for him as he took the lead again. He stared at the map as he passed, not meeting my eyes.

I thought about his questions, really thought about them. Libby had always been the one with a plan, the one who was going to go big in her career. That was never me. Even in high school, I never knew what I wanted to do. I used to want to be an artist. But it was mostly because I liked the idea that I could make someone feel something, just by drawing a picture, and it was partly because I was good at it.

But then things had changed. I had discovered Hunting, and the magnetic pull that art had previously had on me just…faded. It was still there, but it wasn't as strong. I still loved to draw, but it wasn't as driven, as desperate.

"No," I said finally. "I don't want to change the world, don't want to be famous. I just want to help people."

Finn sighed. "You know, people get into Hunting for a lot of reasons. Revenge, vengeance, obligation, because they like it… It's a rare find when you run into a Hunter that does it just because they can."

"Which one are you?" I asked curiously, having a feeling that I already knew. Still, I wanted to hear it from Finn himself.

"We're almost there," he said abruptly, lengthening his stride. Turd—running away when things were just starting to get real. Oh well, I could always wait if he wasn't ready. Maybe he'd trust me enough to let me in. Maybe, maybe.

As we approached the cave, we were silent for an entirely different reason. The kind of reason that involves self-preservation. We both peeled off our packs and started pulling out our weapons of choice. It almost felt like an action movie, where the heroes gear up just before the big battle.

I grabbed my leftover Fourth of July purchases, rolling the three long tubes in my hand. "What the heck are those?" Finn hissed, scoping out the woods surrounding the cave.

"Roman Candles," I whispered back. "Fireworks. They shoot ten little exploding fireballs each. I thought they might come in handy against something that moves extremely fast."

"And what happens when you run out of little exploding fireballs?" He didn't seem impressed, and I didn't like his tone.

Yeesh, everyone's a critic. I reached further into my pack and carefully maneuvered my special bottle out. It wasn't really that special. I'd basically just poured all of my highly flammable rubbing alcohol into a thin, glass jam jar.

"And what is that?" Finn demanded.

"Well, it's certainly not delicious strawberry jam," I snarked back at him. "Look, who's the one who loves fire 'just a little too much?' Just let me do my job. Besides, what did you bring?"

Finn pulled a red gun-looking shape out of his pack. "The perfect mixture of fire," he said, holding it up with one finger through the trigger guard, "and gun."

I gave him a snooty look. "And what if you miss? How many shots do you get?"

He looked slightly unsettled. "One," he said quietly. Oh. That put a damper on things. "But I brought two." Yeah, Finn. Two made it so much better.

I rolled my eyes. "Awesome. Well, at least we'll have the Roman Candles and my baby Molotov cocktail if you happen to miss both times." I ripped a long piece of cloth free of a rag, soaking it in the rubbing alcohol and draping it down the side like a fuse. Then I pulled out my knife and poked a large hole in the lid of the jar, stuffing the other end of the rag through it.

Finn gave me a look, like it was weird that I knew how to do this, but I just shrugged helplessly. "You try watching dozens of action-adventure thrillers and not pick up a few things."

He pulled a wry face, shaking his head, and readied his lame little flare guns. I flicked both of my lighters, making sure that they both worked. They did. Dropping one back into the right, mid-thigh pocket of my cargo pants, I picked up my Molotov cocktail and carefully slid it into the left thigh pocket. Then I held the three roman candles in my left hand, keeping the other lighter ready to ignite the fuses of one or all of them.

Finn clicked the flare guns shut and tested the feel of them, before tucking one into the back of his pants. Then he gave me a solid nod. "Alrighty then," I said quietly. "Here we go."

I ducked under a pine branch and into the opening of the cave. _Here we go indeed_, I thought as Finn entered behind me. And, try as I might, I still couldn't shake the creepy crawly bad feeling roiling in my gut.

* * *

_Four Hours Later..._

The waves swamped forward, propelling me one last time towards the beach before I crashed down into the sand, heaving for breath and ignoring the grit that was sucked into my mouth as I did. Beside me, Finn was still completely limp. I scrabbled at his shoulders with numb fingers, too exhausted to do anything more than drag him forward a few more inches out of the water. "Finn?" I pleaded, my voice cracking weakly. Nothing. "Finn, say something." I pleaded with him further, but he was silent. Silent and still.

Finally I rolled onto my side, struggling for several long minutes just to get my phone out of my pocket and then to open the plastic baggie it was stored inside. The shivers that wracked me didn't help, and neither did the cold crests of waves that broke over our feet and seeped up around our chests before receding again. Rinse and repeat.

Except this wasn't a shampoo commercial. This was real life, and I was terrified. "Finn," I pleaded one last time. "Wake up." He didn't.

By the time the bag in my numb hands finally tore open, and I wanted to celebrate, but my head felt all funny and spinney even though I was lying on the ground. I shook it once, but that just made the problem worse. The water washed up my calves and then thighs and then to my chest. It was horridly cold, and I shivered again, holding my phone above it all.

The cold water _did_ shock the world into becoming clear again, though, so I took advantage of the temporary clarity to fumble weakly at the buttons. _Number one, number one, numberonenumberonenumberone,_ I intoned dully to myself, watching as the buttons fuzzed and blurred in and out of my vision. I pressed number one and then the dial button, and miraculously the phone made the call. My arms became too tired to hold even my small cellphone up, so I dropped them to my chest and rested the phone against my neck.

It rang three times and that was it, but for some reason that was funny to me. I couldn't fathom why, but somewhere in my sluggish mind, it was friggin' hilarious.

A few seconds later, I realized that there was a comforting buzz on the other end, and I had to think about what I was even supposed to be doing. The buzz came again, this time more insistent, and I gradually remembered. "Dean," I whimpered into the phone. "Dean, help." I wanted to say more, to let him know where I was, but I couldn't. I couldn't because suddenly I didn't know anymore, and all I wanted to do was close my eyes. So I did.

And blackness came, taking away the pain in my body and the coldness around me.


	3. My Knights In Red And Blue Plaid Armor

Disclaimer: Winchesters, heh heh heh. Oh, I mean, not mine. All hail King Kripke.

A/N: Does anyone even read these? "Bingle bongle dingle dangle, yickedy doo, yickedy da, ping pong, lippy-tappy-too-ta!" Hah, guess which fandom that's from!

* * *

For a long time, I drifted between hazy oblivion and vague awareness, never quite reaching the apex of either one. Then the world began trickled back into the emptiness of the drift, one micrometer of mental acuity at a time.

I could hear something. Something sharp and annoying and constant.

_Beep…beep…beep_. Too loud, yet never-ending. _Beep…beep…beep_.

I knew what it was. I'd seen enough hospital dramas to recognize a heart rate monitor's steady call. What I was doing in a hospital was anyone's guess.

_Beep…beep…beep_.

_Shut up…shut up…shut up_, I called back to it, unable to focus on anything else for the moment. But really, beeping was good. Beeping meant my heart was still beating, which, after what I'd gone through, was kind of a miracle.

It was a miracle that I had gotten myself ashore. A miracle that I hadn't died, soaking wet and alone on the beach. Except that…I hadn't been alone. Had I? There'd been someone with me. Someone I knew. But it was all foggy, like a memory just out of reach. In my mind, I could see someone lying on the cold sand beside me, but as I reached for them in my memory, pain spiked in my head. The harsh, hot pain burned through the last of the blissful fogginess of sleep and catapulted me into reality.

"Oh, come on, Dean. What did you expect? You _gave_ her the number for a Hunter who happens to specialize in helping get new Hunters on their feet."

That voice. I knew that voice. It was a safe voice, which meant that _I _was safe. I mean, I felt safe. Aside from the pains and aches that pinged and throbbed in my entire body, I didn't feel like I was in danger. So yeah, I was safe.

"Gimme a break, Sam. You know just as well as I do that if anyone could talk her out of Hunting, it would be Bobby. Besides, Bobby said she never called." Ah, yes, the other voice I loved to hear. It was also a safe voice. A very, very safe voice.

Except, they were once again talking about me over my unconscious body. Déjà vu, much?

I cracked my eyes open just in time to see Sam's mouth pull into his familiar frown. Dang, I'd missed that "I am not happy about this" frown. Definite bitchface. It was just so…Sam.

Sam turned his frustration onto Dean and gestured with a hand. "Look, all I'm saying is—" he began.

"Don't," I croaked. "Don't fight." The last thing I wanted was for them to fight because of me. Though after the two withering glances they sent me, I knew I probably should have just kept my mouth shut.

I looked at Dean and then hurriedly away. He was giving me a calm, steady look that managed to ignite both horrible shame and burning embarrassment from me. _I told you this would happen_, screamed his completely neutral gaze. _I told you this would happen, and it did._

I looked up at the ceiling and lay perfectly still. My head hurt. My body hurt. I didn't want judgment right now. I didn't want anything.

Actually that was a lie. Some painkillers would've been fantastic.

I tried to focus on breathing. In. Out. In. Out. But the breath hurt coming in, and it shuddered out much too easily. It felt like my lungs were compressed with thick sponges, which was a totally weird thought, but it was entirely possible that iron loofah sponges were grating against the outside of my lungs. And inside my head, something was desperately pounding to get out. It was miserable, feeling every sensation alive within my body. Miserable and painful with no respite.

A man walked through the door, white coat and stethoscope boldly present. He gave me a broad smile and went to the foot of my bed, pulling my chart up. "Ah, you're awake. Hi, there. I'm Doctor Camsey. So how are we feeling today?"

Sam and Dean shifted a little, almost uncomfortably. They didn't like hospitals, then. Or maybe doctors in general. Fine, well, I would try and make this as non-eventful as possible for them. It was the least I could do.

"Better," I said, my voice a little less croaky now. I'd been to the hospital enough with Libby to know what doctors wanted to hear. They didn't want to hear that you were doing great, because you wouldn't be in the hospital if you were doing great. They also didn't want to hear that you were doing terrible, because that meant they needed to spend extra time figuring out why you were allegedly not feeling well after initial treatment.

From all my visits, I had gathered one key phrase that always seemed to make them happy. "Better." That made it seem like you were improving, and doctors wanted nothing more than for their patients to be improving. They were more likely to leave you alone if you were getting better.

"I'm doing a lot better," I said sincerely. Or with what I hoped was sincerity since I was lying my pants off.

The doctor pursed his lips, looking from my chart to the heart rate monitor. Oops, I had forgotten about the improvised lie detector keyed into my heart. "Well," Doctor Camsey said slowly, "I'm glad to hear it, but your heightened vitals suggest that I either make you extremely uncomfortable or you're in a lot of pain."

_And that's what you get for being cocky_, I scolded myself. I tried to smile at him, but honestly my chest felt like it was going to collapse at any second, and I couldn't even manage that.

"I see," the doctor said kindly. "The pain isn't surprising, though. Not with your condition. Hypothermia, four fractured ribs, and a blow to the head tend to do that to a person."

Oh. Yeah, there was no bluffing my way out of this one. I gritted my teeth and forced a smile anyway. "Awesome."

But Doctor Camsey wasn't finished. "The rib fractures and the early stage hypothermia are common and were treated easily enough, and the recovery rate is usually excellent for both, so that's not something we need to worry about. It's the blow to the head that I'm more interested in keeping an eye on."

He paused, as if to make sure I was still following him, but he needn't have bothered. All three of us were hanging onto his every word. Taking another breath, he continued, "As you may know, head injuries are tricky. Sometimes they lead to severe complications, or sometimes nothing at all. However, my main concern stems from the fact that you had both a blow to the head_ and_ early stage hypothermia. The body is known to do some drastic things to protect itself during periods of extreme cold, and that, coupled with a head injury, could lead to some unforeseeable obstacles such as memory loss or difficulty processing or storing information."

He paused again, studying me. I forced myself to remain still, even though the pain was starting to grate on my sanity. "You don't seem like you're having any trouble following this conversation, so I think the latter is out. But some temporary memory loss could be a real problem. Fortunately, all our usual scans and tests came back negative for anything indicative of brain trauma or neural damage, so all we need to do is pinpoint your current condition and then monitor it to potentially catch anything new before it develops."

He glanced down at my chart, and my stomach twisted with apprehension. "Your brothers filled out your personal information, so I'm going to ask you a few questions, and you just answer to the best of your ability. Can you tell me your name and date of birth?" Behind him, Sam's eyes widened slightly and he shook his head almost imperceptibly.

There was a reason I didn't carry ID on me when I Hunted, and this was one of them. If whoever I was with—be it cops or clinics or hospitals—didn't know who I was, then they couldn't notify my family. It would potentially give me time to come up with a story before involving my real life. Except now, my "brothers" had apparently filled out my chart, no doubt with information completely foreign to me. I had no basis or opportunity to build a story, and I didn't know anything about what they might have put down, so I wouldn't be able to corroborate it.

I wanted to scream, and it wasn't just from pain. _No Doc, I can't tell you my name and date of birth. Why's that you ask? Oh, because it's probably all lies. And for once, it's lies that I didn't tell. _

The way I saw it, I had two options. One, play up the memory loss angle. Or two, become the absolutely bitchy Godzilla patient that doctors hated. Since only one of those options made a timely exit from the hospital possible, I went with door number two.

"Look, Doc," I said, trying to create the right balance of impatience and obvious strain in my voice. "I know who I am. I know when I was born. I know who my brothers are. I know all that. What I don't know is how long I have to sit here in excruciating pain." I half smiled and before breaking down into a grimace, which wasn't even acting. I was in serious pain, and it was only getting worse.

Doctor Camsey looked a little taken aback, and I dropped my head onto the pillow, screwing my face up at the ceiling. I felt kind of bad. I was in pain, yes, but normally, I wouldn't have been so dramatic about it. The things I do for this life.

Off to my left, Dean smirked then went back to being grim, as if he remembered he was supposed to be mad at me. Doctor Camsey frowned, looking like he wanted to push the subject, but he finally relented. "Alright. I can get you something for the pain, and we can work on this later."

"Something for the pain would be lovely," I said in a strangled voice, trying to hurry things along.

Doctor Camsey called the nurse, and she put something in my IV. A minute later, the pain slowly receded, and I was overcome with the urge to giggle. Dean pulled the doctor aside and spoke with him using hushed tones. I wanted to know what he was saying, but as the seconds ticked by, I didn't really care anymore. The beeping of the heart rate machine was far more exciting.

Another nurse came in with a bunch of papers, and Dean signed them hurriedly. Doctor Camsey kept talking, going down the papers section by section with his pen. Dean nodded and would occasionally say something. Boring.

I looked over at Sam, wondering how he got so tall. Sam noticed me looking and he smiled. I didn't smile back, suddenly not trusting someone who could grow so much. Then I realized that was silly, and I smiled, but it was too late because he'd already looked away.

We were stuck for a couple hours, but I didn't pay attention to much. Well, at least I didn't until a really nice nurse brought me some food. I bypassed the weird looking noodles and went straight for the Jell-o. It was green, and it slid down my throat funny, but I still ate it. Sam told me to drink some water, threatening to take away my Jell-o when I shook my head. I scowled at him, but I drank. Ain't nobody touching my Jell-o but me.

Finally Doctor Camsey came back, and he moved in front of me. "Well, you're free to go, I guess." He didn't sound happy about it, which I thought was funny.

"Thanks, Doc," Dean said, closing the topic against further discussion with only two words. Woah. That was intense. I needed to learn how to do that.

Sam helped me out of the bed so I could stand, but I didn't know why I needed help. Standing was easy. "Wait. Wait. I need to pay," I said, for the first time feeling strangely out of it as I scrambled to focus on a specific thought and sentence. It was almost like déjà vu, I couldn't tell if this was happening or if it already had.

Doctor Camsey smiled at me, a real one this time, not forced. "Don't worry, Miss Ettisberg, I believe your brothers already took care of the paperwork."

I looked at Sam and Dean, mouth agape. Then affection rushed through me, making me warm and fuzzy. "The tall one is adopted," I told Doctor Camsey, totally sincere. It took me a second to remember that Sam wasn't even related to me, and that I was the one who was adopted. Oops.

"And we're leaving," Dean said quickly, moving to grab my elbow. I pulled free, suddenly remembering something really important.

"Wait, I gotta…I gotta…" I trailed off as whatever had been nagging me slipped away again.

"Yeah, baby sister, maybe we should wait for the happy drugs to wear off before we do anything but go home," Dean said, giving the doctor a nice smile. Why wasn't he this cheerful all the time?

"The pain medication should wear off soon, but you have the instructions and dosage details to re-administer it?" Doctor Camsey asked.

Dean smiled again. "Yes. Ella, here, is kind of accident prone, so we've done this before."

I scowled at him for a second when he used my old name, but then I stopped. I recognized a cover identity when I heard one. "Ella Ettisberg," I announced, wanting to sell it to the doctor, "that's me." Doctor Camsey smiled kindly at me and patted me on the shoulder.

"Alright, if you have the discharge instructions, then I think we're all done here. Have a good—and incident free—day. Don't hesitate to call if you have any questions or notice something unusual pertaining to our earlier discussion." I waved at Doctor Camsey as he left, and he returned the wave before walking out and looking at his pager.

"Thanks, doc," Dean called after him with a smile. Then he turned to me and his smile disappeared. Oops. I wasn't even related to him, but I'd gotten that same look many a time from Aaron or Neal. It was a patented big brother look. I would have been worried had I not been distracted by Doctor Camsey's pager.

His pager. Who even used a pager anymore? I giggled then covered my mouth quickly, remembering that we were in a hospital. People weren't supposed to giggle in hospitals. They were supposed to be all grim and serious. Dean would fit right in. Maybe he should just stay here.

Sam moved to my other side. "Come on, Riley. We need to leave."

I gazed up at him, thinking it was funny that I had to tip my head way, way back to do it. "You're not adopted," I told him, not wanting him to think I didn't already know my mistake.

His mouth twitched into a half smile. "Yeah, I know," he said with a small snort. "Where are your clothes?"

I pursed my lips thoughtfully, sucking in a deep breath as I raised a finger towards the ceiling and swiveled my head in search of my stuff. When I finally spotted the bag of my items, I pointed at it dramatically and let out my breath in a whoosh.

Dean moved quickly, snagging it off the chair and tossing it to me. It hit me in the chest and fell into my arms, but I wasn't prepared for the impact, and I toppled backwards. Sam's arms came around me and kept me from falling. "Whoa," I said, eyes wide. "You are really, really strong." An idea occurred to me, and I got excited, despite how out of it I felt. "Can you carry me?"

"What? No," Sam said quickly, disentangling his arms from around me as he set me upright again.

I pouted for a second then brightened. "Finn will carry me."

"Finn? Finn who?" Dean asked absently, his grumpy, serious face back on.

Finn. I swayed in place, trying my best to follow that random thought down the rabbit hole. But it was already gone again. "I don't…I don't know." A static-burst of pain lanced through my head, just behind my forehead, and I clamped my hands down against my temples and squeezed my eyes shut, hoping the pressure would somehow make it go away. It didn't. "I don't know. I don't know. I don't know," I whispered rapidly, half pleading, to no one in particular.

"Hold it together, Riley. For just a few more minutes, okay, kiddo?" It was Dean, only his voice wasn't angry like it had been. He sounded nice, now, and hands cupped my face gently. I opened my eyes to find him in front of me, searching my face for some sign that I wasn't losing it.

"Hold it together," I repeated, dropping my hands from my head and affirming it with a nod.

Dean rose, swiping my fallen bag of clothes from my feet. "Sam?" he asked, turning away and checking both ways out the door. He was being sneaky all of a sudden, and it excited me. It was almost like we were in a spy movie.

"Yep," Sam said. And suddenly I was lifted into the air. Sam hefted me a little, getting a better grip under my back and knees, and I bore it patiently.

"Hold it together," I murmured to myself, locking onto that phrase with a terrier's intensity. "Hold it together. Just hold it together."

Dean remained plastered to the door, peeking around both corners a tiny bit. We were waiting. For what, I didn't know, but we were. Then, all of a sudden, we weren't. "Go," Dean said, back to his serious tone. And then we were moving.

We traveled down the hall pretty quickly, avoiding anyone in a white coat. None of the nurses even glanced at us, and I wondered if they should be stopping us. It felt like we were being sneaky. Wasn't it their job to stop sneaky people from…being sneaky? Or something like that?

A second later, Doctor Camsey turned the corner, discussing something with a lady in purple scrubs. I tried to wave at him, but Dean swore, and suddenly, we all ducked into a room. There was an elderly man resting in the bed, one of those oxygen thingies under his nose. He was watching TV and then watching us when we hustled into his room.

I waved at him from Sam's arms. He gave a wheeze and waved back with a wrinkled hand. I smiled at him, and a second later I gasped excitedly, remembering something new. "Winchester!" I said, poking Sam in the chest. He was so muscled that it almost hurt my finger. "Sam and Dean Winchester."

His hair tickled my forehead as he glanced down at me. "Shh shh shh," Sam whispered.

I put a finger to my lips, nodding and understanding completely. He didn't want anyone to know his secret identity. I looked back at the old man, putting the finger to my lips again to let him know not to tell anyone. He gave me a shaky thumbs up. I returned it, and then we were moving again.

We went down some stairs faster than I'd ever gone down stairs before. Or maybe not. It was all very disorientating, watching the floor numbers get smaller and smaller as the steps got longer and longer. And then suddenly we were outside.

I winced, burying my head in Sam's shoulder as the bright light made the pain in my head flare. I had felt this way once before, a long time ago. I had felt this way—when everything was too bright and too loud—but I didn't remember why.

The car was nicer, though. The seats were soft, and the engine purred. When Dean accelerated, the vibrations were soothing against the weird throbbing ache raging in my brain. Music drifted through the car, and I liked it. None of that screechy techno garbage, it was full-bodied rock. I closed my eyes, and let the quiet chaos lull me to sleep.

And with that, Sam and Dean Winchester stole me from a hospital.


	4. Schmoop Fest

Disclaimer: Winchesters are not mine.

A/N: There's some language in this one, sorry if that offends anyone. Also, whoever left me the review "I am so pissed I'm not even logging in. I can't believe you. Rawhg." Totally made me laugh :) Thanks! Furthermore, there are so many random references in this chapter, it's almost embarrassing. Have fun finding them all!

* * *

We got to a motel. I didn't remember coming inside, but the bed and I became fast friends. I lay there for hours. Sam and Dean didn't try to offer small comforts, didn't try to coax conversation out of me. They let me be, and I lay there, following the few scattered pieces of memory as far as I could. It was like following a piece of string, slowly running my hand along it as I wondered where it would lead me. Only, the memories would always lead to the same place: pain.

Hot pain, crackling pain, headache pain. If I pushed too far all I would get was pain. If I pulled back soon enough, then sometimes I would be rewarded with another hazy fragment. Sometimes if I just lay there in a stupor, I would get a feeling and then the memory attached to that feeling would filter into focus. There was no rhyme or reason; it just happened. Sometimes I would pass out, sometimes I would just drift.

At one point I floated back to reality, only to find the most beautiful pair of green eyes hovering above me. "Are you a Disney princess?" I asked dreamily. The eyes blinked once and then the rest of the face snapped into focus as my brain caught up with itself.

"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," I uttered loudly, flailing to the edge of the bed away from the owner of the eyes. "Not a princess. Not a fucking princess."

"I don't know Sammy, I kind of like her better when she's on drugs," Not Princess said with a smirk. Where was I? How did I get here?

I staggered off the bed, slapping away his hands. "Don't you fucking touch me," I yelled at him, wheezing as I spun wildly. It hurt to breathe, and my gun was gone, so where was my knife? It wasn't at my hip, and I couldn't see it, which meant I had to get out of here. It wasn't safe. I had to run. I had to find Finn.

Finn. Who was that? I knew him, I did. He was just out of reach, just past the fuzziness of untouchable memories.

"Riley," Dean snapped. I whipped my head back towards him, eyes frantically wide. He was inching closer to me the way someone does with an injured animal.

Dean.

Dean was safe.

Dean meant _I_ was safe.

Whoops. I had just yelled at him, using some less than stellar language. Why the heck hadn't I recognized him in the first place?

I stilled my body, straightening out of my defensive stance and loosening my balled fists. "It's okay. I remember," I murmured, suddenly lightheaded. "I remember." There was an apology tucked into those words somewhere. I hoped he understood. Dean took another slow step towards me, but I shook my head. I didn't want his help. I didn't want him to touch me. I just wanted to lie down again.

I moved around him, breaking my no touching rule when my chest constricted and refused to inflate again. Wobbling dangerously sideways, I locked my fingers into Dean's forearm for support. Lord have mercy, I was dying. But then something inside me kicked it back in gear, and I started breathing again. Releasing Dean's arm, I eased myself onto the bed again and flung one arm over my aching eyes.

I could feel their worried stares. I could feel them, but I didn't care or do anything to alleviate their concern. I knew it was selfish of me. Sam and Dean had come when I needed them, come when I had no one else. They had dropped everything to come find me, and they deserved more than a psychotic half-zombie.

"Sorry," I muttered at the ceiling, more or less in my right mind now. I kind of wished I was high on pain meds again. At least then the horrible jagged pain in my side would stop, and the knowledge that my mind was damaged wouldn't be foremost in my thoughts, egging me on. But no. I needed to remember what had happened. And to do that, I needed my mind sharp, regardless of how bad it hurt.

I hated being helpless, hated it with a burning passion. "Fuck," I spat out vehemently, wanting to hit something. Instead, I promised myself that it was the last time I was going to swear in front of them. There was no call for it, and it was just vulgar.

But the helplessness was still there, taunting me from the depths of my muddled memories. "Fuck," I repeated, just as violently as before. Okay, _that_ was the last time I was going to swear in front of them. Really for reals this time.

"You kiss your mother with that mouth?" Dean asked me. I think he was maybe just trying to break the tension, because he had worse language than I did, and we both knew it.

"I learned it from you," I informed him grumpily. "You think I had a potty mouth in the pre-Winchester era of my life? I did _not_."

"Well…can't argue with that," he admitted, sounding a bit mischievous. "Guess I just have a way of corrupting the ladies, eh, Sam?"

"Real classy, Dean," Sam said with no real heat in his voice. "She's only…"

"Nineteen," I volunteered, still shielding my eyes with an arm.

"...nineteen. She doesn't need to hear that crap." Ah, Sam. Ever the gentleman.

"Oh, come on, Sammy. Lighten up. Live a little." Dean subsided into silence, but his ploy had worked. I no longer felt like I needed to hit something. Sam said something else, but I wasn't really paying attention anymore. Just listening to their banter had pulled me back from the edge.

I pulled my arm off my face and sat up. My ribs sent a plethora of pain signals to my brain, reminding me that I need to work on slow, smooth movements over the next few weeks.

"How'd I get to the hospital?" I asked.

Dean shrugged, digging through his duffel bag. Sam looked up from his laptop, frowning. "Someone found you, I guess. They must have taken you to the emergency room. Dean and I tracked your cellphone's last known location, which was the beach, and then we started checking local hospitals for Jane Does matching your description. No one could tell us anything about who brought you in."

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. I comforted myself by sticking to a rhythm. The adrenaline and fear had burned through the last of my pain med haze of happiness, and I was feeling every bit of the four fractured ribs.

Breathe in. We don't know how you got there. Breathe out.

Breathe in. What the hell did you get yourself into? Breathe out.

Breathe in. What do you mean you don't remember? Breathe out.

Breathe in. Well, what do you remember? Breathe out.

It was a nice rhythm, sans the Winchester interrogation. When I got tired of their questions—which seemed to swing from mild disbelief to full-on incredulity at the extent of my gaps in memory—I just stopped answering. It's not like I _could_ answer anyhow. Breathe in, breath out. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. What do we do? We swim, swim, swim.

I found it hysterical that now, of all times, I was taking advice from an animated fish that had severe memory problems. Good Lord, I was out of control, and I wasn't even on pain meds yet.

Sam and Dean pushed at me, but eventually they grew tired of my silence and shifted their attention elsewhere. I tuned them out, reviewing what little information I knew.

I had washed up a beach with four fractured ribs, a head injury, and mild hypothermia. I had called Dean. Someone had found me and taken me to a hospital. Then Dean had arrived and promptly stolen me from the hospital.

But there was more. There had been someone with me on that beach, I was sure of it. Yet I couldn't remember. The last couple of months were kind of hazy as well. Something was nagging at me, though. I was missing something, but I didn't know what. It just felt like a part of me was…gone. For now. Sometimes tiny snatches of memory came back. Little snippets, words. Sometimes it was a half-remembered conversation. Other times it was a memory of a solid presence beside me. Either way, I wanted whatever it was back.

And if there was anything I'd learned from the last few years, it was that I was pretty good at fighting for what I wanted.

I let out a sigh, bringing my arm up slowly and shoving it under the end of the pillow. Then I turned my cheek into the soft material and tried to let everything drop out of focus. It didn't work. A couple minutes later, I sat up.

The remote to the TV was just sitting on the small dresser between the beds, so I plucked it up and turned the whole thing on. I clicked through the channels, frowning inattentively. Then I ran into a certain man in a bowtie, and I settled back to watch. "Bowties are cool," I announced to no one in particular. Both Winchesters completely ignored me, and it was almost nicer that way. Made it easier to pretend that I hadn't almost died. Again.

"Dean," Sam said quietly, just seconds after I watched a blue box sail into a fissure in time and the credits appeared on the screen. I glanced over at Sam, and Dean looked up from the bed, pulling out a headphone from his ear and pushing a button on his phone.

He swung his long legs off the bed and was at Sam's shoulder in a mere second. "Looks like we got a werewolf, two counties over," Sam said quietly. Geez. Sam had only been at it for a few hours. He was good. He was really, really good. It usually took me hours upon hours to even find a possible case, much less narrow down what it might be.

If Dean was fazed at the mention of a werewolf, it didn't register in his tone of voice. "You want to take care of it, or do you want me to?" I imagined Sam and Dean chasing down Jacob Black from Twilight, and the thought made me want to giggle. Then I sobered. There was no way a werewolf was as nice as the guys from Twilight. Werewolves were probably vicious and bloodthirsty, not cuddly with great abs.

There was silence and then the soft slap of fists into palms. Rock-paper-scissors. I would bet my left kidney on it. And since it was rock-paper-scissors, I already knew who would be staying. Or going.

Whichever thing they deemed worse, Dean would do, because Sam had told me once that Dean had yet to win against him. Back then I couldn't decide if that was by choice, or if Dean was just really bad at the game. I still didn't know. But then again, the two weren't always mutually exclusive. Dean was kind of funny like that when it came to Sam.

A quick glance to the left proved me right, and Dean had once again lost with his continued choice of throwing the scissors sign. Sam stood up, gathering his stuff and grabbing his bag. He gave the TV a weird glance, and I gave him a snooty "don't judge me" glance. That made him smile, at least. Then he was gone, and both brothers walked out into the parking lot.

I didn't hear the Impala start up, though, which made me wonder how exactly Sam intended on getting two counties over. But then again, he was a resourceful fellow, and I was sure he'd be fine.

Dean appeared in the doorway again, leaning one strong shoulder inside. "I'm going to run to the store. Don't go anywhere."

I waved the remote at him, not bothering to look up. I didn't intend to go anywhere. I had a bed, and I had the BBC America channel. I didn't need to move for a month.

His head and shoulder disappeared out of my peripheral, and a few seconds later, I heard the swarthy rumble of the Impala engine.

By the time I heard the same comforting rumble again, I was already in a Sherlockian coma. "Just tell us how he did it," I grumbled at the TV as I heard the familiar squeak of the car door opening. I tried to turn my scowl into something welcoming. _It's nice to see you. I'm just over here mourning over fictional characters. How was your day?_

When Dean walked through the door, my face was entirely neutral, and I tried to act natural, as if I hadn't just experienced emotional trauma at the hands of a TV show. Regardless of my emotional status, Dean held up a bag of popsicles and a six pack of blue Gatorade. "Got the essentials," he said cheerfully.

I screwed up my face even though I was perfectly happy with his purchases. I was never one to turn down popsicles, and I knew Gatorade had all sorts of good stuff in it like electrolytes and sugar—stuff people usually need when they almost die. Besides, blue was my favorite flavor anyhow. How Dean knew that, I had no idea.

But really, who goes out and buys popsicles and Gatorade for a trauma patient?

Dean cast a knowing look over his shoulder, kind of grinning. "What, you think this is the first time I've taken care of a sick kid before?" He was a mind reader. He had some kind of weird mind juju, I just knew it.

"I'm not sick. I'm just broken," I said, pointing it out with the sincerest of logic. _Mind juju that, Dean Winchester,_ I called silently.

Dean ignored me and went on. "I practically raised Sammy. I mean, I love the kid, but my baby brother is a total bitch when he is sick. But the one thing that never fails? Gatorade. And popsicles."

_That's actually two things_, I wanted to point out, but it wasn't worth the effort. Dean pulled a bottle free of the plastic rings and twisted the cap off with a small crack. Then he walked over and extended it to me. I took it from him, trying to use the least possible amount of movement, and I took a sip, liking the way it trickled down my throat without burning. Dean reached over to the dresser between the beds and pulled the bottle of pain meds out of the drawer. Dang it.

Shaking out two ugly pills into his hand, Dean paused, double checking the label on the bottle. Then he shook another one free of the bottle and held them out to me. I gave his hand a mutinous glance, but he didn't even blink. I didn't want them, even though the pain was starting to get to me. I wanted to be able to think. Pain or operational mental faculties—I weighed the options in my mind with great care. Okay, I'd take them. Today. Just for today.

I scowled to tell Dean I wasn't happy, and then I tossed the pills back with another mouthful of Gatorade. Dean rose from his crouch, apparently satisfied. Turd.

It took a while for the meds to kick in, but boy did they do a good job. I didn't really notice when things stopped hurting, everything just seemed to fade from my mind. I let out a small giggle, thinking it funny when the weird stain on the ceiling was shaped like a cephalopod. That reminded me of something. Something I had to ask Dean.

But first, I needed to itch my nose. I did so and noticed a bandage on my hand, crossing my palm. "Hey," I called out demandingly, "what happened to my hand?"

Dean let out a sigh that I could hear from all the way across the room. "You tell me, Riley. You tell me."

I scoffed. "Can't," I said glibly. "Don't remember it a tall." The stain on the ceiling distracted me from further annoyance at Dean, though. "Do cephalopods have noses?" I asked, wrinkling and itching the tip of mine yet again.

Dean didn't answer. I tried to roll onto my side and look at him, but all I managed to do was awkwardly angle myself and get all out of breath. Things were spinning and whirling, and I decided it was best to just lie still before something too wild happened.

Dean got up and came over, staring down at me with a look that belonged back at the hospital. "Uh-oh, Mister Grumpy Face is here," I said, pointing an accusatory finger up at him. "Go back to the hospital, Grumpy." He would fit right in with all the other Grumpy Gills and Pants there.

"Go to sleep, Riley," Dean said, sounding tired. But _I_ wasn't tired. No siree.

"I can't! The sky's awake, so I'm awake," I informed him, very matter-of-factly. Then I smiled my best smile at him. He didn't smile back. Fine, I'd go to sleep, just to make him happy.

But first. "What about Finn?" I murmured. Finn, Finn, Finn, Finn, Finn. Who was that again? And why did I care? It felt like I should care, but I couldn't remember why.

"Still don't know who that is," Dean said quietly, touching a hand to my forehead and then my cheek. His skin was cold, and I didn't understand why he was touching me, so I batted his hand away. Or at least I thought I did. I might have just waved a hand about in the air for all I knew. Dean frowned down at me. "With all those meds I just gave you, you should be out like a light."

I shrugged. Whatcha going to do about it? I had a high tolerance or whatever.

"Out like a light. That's a funny saying, you know?" I said conversationally. "Like, first there's a light, and then you just flick the switch, and it's gone. Out." Dean gave me a weird look, but I hastened to explain the funny part.

"It's like their eyes. There's a light, you know? Then, cichgh"—I drew my thumb over my throat, miming death—"it's gone. Like turning off the light." Dean's face got very serious all of a sudden, and I kind of realized something. "Wait," I murmured, rubbing at my eyes tiredly. "That's not funny. That's sad."

Wasn't it? I couldn't remember. "Well, it's kind of funny," I rationalized, not really understanding why I had originally thought it funny but sticking to my guns anyway.

"Jesus, kid," Dean said grimly.

I recoiled, offended. "No, I'm Riley. 'Sides, 's not my fault if you donnae like my jokes." Then I frowned, confused as to why my words were coming out slurred. "Wait, on' more. Knock kno' who's th're—" I began, barely able to contain my giggle when I knew I should be waiting for the punchline to laugh.

"Alright, that's it. We're calling it a day, Short Round," Dean said, suddenly bundling me over on my side, and pulling the blankets out from under me. I thought about complaining, but a second later they draped back over me. Woah, talk about tricky. Tricky. That reminded me of another joke.

I worked my hand free of the layers of blankets, raising it for no reason other than to inform him I wasn't done yet. "I got 'nother joke," I said weakly, my voice starting to sound funny even to my own ears.

"Not happening, kiddo," Dean said gruffly, fighting my arm back under the blankets.

_Your loss_, I wanted to say, but my eyes slid shut and my mouth followed suit.


	5. Picking Up The Pieces

Disclaimer: The Winchesters are not mine or I would not be writing fan fiction, sigh.

* * *

I spent the next day almost entirely on drugs. Dean never actually gave them to me, but somehow I had them in my system. It wasn't until dinnertime that I finally realized he was spiking my Gatorade, the turd.

So I spent the day high as a kite, telling him my best jokes. He even laughed for a few of them. I chatted about anything and everything, sometimes just talking to myself. I was like a fountain of words, and more often than not, Dean would shake his head—with a pained look on his face—and say my name real slow. I never understood what that meant, so I just kept talking. I told him about my brothers and Libby and my art. I told him about my Hunting. Sometimes I even sang him snippets of old Disney songs when I could pull together enough words to make a coherent chorus. And when he got tired of listening to me talk, he turned on the TV. The TV was muted, but watching things jump around on screen was still wildly fascinating.

If that failed to keep me occupied, Dean would go into the bathroom and turn on the sink. It would make all the lights in the room flicker, and I would laugh outrageously every time it happened. It was hilarious. Don't ask me why.

We made it through the day incident free. Dean cleaned all his guns. I stared at the ceiling. Dean went out and got us food. I ate a little then threw it back up after only a few minutes. Dean gave me popsicles. I kept those down. Dean turned the TV on again. I fell asleep watching something about jaguars on a wilderness channel.

I woke up a while later. My head felt a little fuzzy, but I had actual clarity—drug free, then. More than anything, though, I had to pee. All that Gatorade had finally caught up to me. Okay, bathroom. I could do that. I sat up, easing my way of the bed. Dean was on the bed across from me. He lay fully clothed, arms crossed over his chest and feet crossed at the ankle. His gun was resting on the nightstand right next to the alarm clock. The red numbers reflected oddly off the metal, but I could still read them. It was two in the morning. Awesome.

I stood, wavering in place slightly, before making my way to the bathroom. It wasn't too hard, and I only almost fell over once. Okay, twice. But I got there, and I was enormously pleased since I had done it without any assistance. Closing the door, I turned the light on, hoping it wouldn't shine too brightly under the crack at the bottom and wake Dean up.

After finishing my business, I stood up shakily and went to the sink. The handle for the hot water wouldn't budge, so I was stuck washing my hands with cold. I turned it on, and the lights flickered, dropping me into random flashes darkness. I hesitated, suddenly a little gun-shy about sticking my hands under the spray. But I did it anyways.

That'll teach me to ever ignore my instincts again.

Icy water blasted over my hands as the room went dark, and suddenly I was sucked into a memory.

_The cold water seemed to constrict my chest, filling me with panic. My muscles wanted to freeze, locked in a single rigid position, but I fought through it. I couldn't give in to the gentle, welcoming numbness the water provided. I flailed a hand out of the icy water and yanked Finn's head above the water line. His stillness scared me, but he was breathing. That's what mattered. I let my panic go, my fight to keep Finn's head above water driving out any spare thought I had to give. Instead, vicious determination flooded me. I picked a single light in the distance, and I swam for it with all my might, dragging Finn through the water behind me._

I yanked my hand out from under the faucet, taking one staggering step away from the sink. The breath whooshed in and out of me at an uncontrollable rate, and I felt like I was still trapped in the freezing waters, trying to keep myself and Finn from drowning. I gasped and wheezed, feeling the pain in my side being overridden by wild lightheadedness. My heart seemed to be going a million miles an hour, and suddenly I couldn't think. I slapped sideways at the bathroom door, my hand sliding uselessly over the door handle. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I was probably dying.

"Riley?" I could hear Dean's tired call, and it was partially annoyed, partially concerned. Then the world tipped sideways and I thumped to the floor. It was cool against my cheek, just like the sand on the beach had been. I sucked in one last terrified breath, and then everything went black.

Eventually, green eyes wavered above me. They were followed by a slightly freckled nose and a jaw covered in reddish stubble. Oh. It was _him_. "How's it going down there?" A Cheshire cat smile stretched across his stupid face. Turd.

"Awesome," I said groggily, glad that I at least hadn't called him a Disney princess this time. I extended my hand, wanting him to pull me up, but he did nothing of the sort. Oh, right. Fractured ribs, not good for pulling and such. "What happened?"

He crouched down at my side, as much as the tiny bathroom would allow. Then he eased an arm behind my back and got me sitting up. "You had a panic attack."

A panic attack? I never had panic attacks. I had nerves of steel. "Did not," I said mulishly.

Dean snorted. "Just trust me on this one, Riley. You had a panic attack. I would know. I had a few back when I was a kid, after…after my mom died."

"Oh," I said, less obstinately. I couldn't imagine Mister Untouchable having a panic attack. I didn't think he was scared of anything. "How old were you?"

Dean's face was about as expressive as a slab of granite. "Four," he said. Of course, he was. He was four when he had panic attacks, and I was nearly twenty. Still, his tone gave notion that the topic was closed, so I let it go.

I stood up on my own, very proud of that single accomplishment, and made my way back to the bed. I crawled onto it, ignoring the pain in my ribs, and buried my head in the pillow. "Ugh," I groaned loudly, more in self-loathing than anything else.

"What set it off?" Dean asked quietly. "The panic attack, I mean."

I pulled my face out of the pillow, spat a lock of hair out of my mouth, and twisted my head to look over my shoulder at him. He was still standing in the doorway of the bathroom, and the golden light streamed out from behind him, silhouetting him magnificently. I half expected the clouds to open and to hear a heavenly choir start singing. It was an amusing thought, just for a second, and then I tamped it down. _Back to reality, Ri_, I told myself sadly.

"The water," I said finally. "It was so cold and the lights flickered. I remembered trying to swim to shore without drowning myself or Finn. It was dark then, too."

"You remembered." It wasn't a question, and I didn't answer.

Oh yeah. I remembered. It was the only good thing that had come from my panic attack. Finn. He wasn't just a passing whisper of a thought. He was the thing, the _person_, I couldn't remember. Finn. I had a name now, and for some reason, that filled me with dark satisfaction. I had a name, and I had part of a memory. And boy oh boy, the things I could do with that.

I buried my face in the pillow again. I had a name. I didn't have a face yet, but I had his name. Finn.

I rolled on my back, staring up at the ceiling. "You should get some shuteye, kiddo," Dean said, falling back onto his own bed.

But I wasn't going to sleep. I was going to think. Better yet, I was going to remember.

* * *

When Dean got up in the morning, I was still laying there, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling. I was getting more memories back. Some were old, but I didn't care. I was getting them _back_.

Dean tried to get me to eat something, but I brushed him off with a prosaic "not hungry" and left it at that. I didn't want him to try and slip pain meds into my drinks or food. I could think—could remember—when my head was clear. And it was going to stay that way if I had any say in it.

The pain was back though, a dull hammering in my ribs and pounding in my head. There were no sharp spikes or horrible waves anymore, which was nice. It was more like a constant aching simmer. Along with it came a different kind of ache. One that started deep inside my chest. It was weird, though, just how vivid the pain was when it came from the heart. I hadn't thought it could compare to physical pain, but in that moment—faced with both—I felt each of them equally in their own ways.

I'd heard that amputees feel the pain of a phantom limb. Right now, I was feeling the ache of a phantom person that I couldn't even remember. It was worse, in a way, not knowing what I'd lost. Who was Finn to me? It was dangling just out of reach. I was slowly getting the pieces back, though, and that had to mean something. Didn't it?

Or maybe I was just being overly dramatic about this whole thing. Maybe I just needed to buckle down and get over myself.

I pictured Finn in my mind, the hazy outline on the beach. I pulled the memory of cold waves washing over me and focused on that. I remembered the terror pounding through me. In the memory I reached over and shook Finn's shoulder. "Finn, say something," I pleaded, unsure of whether I was just remembering it or if I said it out loud. Either way, just like that, I was slammed with another memory.

_The wendigo was playing with us, I decided, trying to choose which of us to kill first. Not a second later, it chose. With a movement faster than I could track, the wendigo appeared in front of Finn, knocking him backwards and standing over him. _

_ Its hand went high in the air and came down, faster than I could scream. Blood flew in an answering arc, and I felt like someone had just ripped out my heart. My thumb flicked to life on the lighter, and almost without thought, I lit the fuses of all three Roman Candles. Then I screamed._

I scared the shit out of Dean. One second I was trapped in my head and the next I was jumping quite briskly up the decibel chart. He was at my side in an instant, shaking my shoulders roughly. A tsunami of pain swept through me at the jerky movements, but it brought me back to reality that much quicker. My mouth snapped shut with an audible click.

Yowza. Today was just full of surprises.

Dean dropped my shoulders, and I fell onto the bed like a wet noodle. He scrubbed a hand over his face, and there was no trace of his good humor anywhere. No mirthful twinkle in his eyes like he gets when yanking my chain, no smirk, nothing. He just looked kind of scared.

"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," I gasped when I could finally force words out. "Well, that worked better than expected."

Dean's face morphed from scared to concerned to pissed in about two seconds flat. Oops. Wrong thing to say.

I waved a hand at him, trying to lighten the mood. "You know, they could totally make a movie out of my life right now. Or at the very least, a TV show. Morgan Freeman could narrate it. Mh-hmm. It would be called 'The Life and Times of a Teenage Amnesiac.' Daytime television at its finest, I tell you."

Dean didn't look amused. He just sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on knees, staring me down like he could make me spontaneously combust.

I sobered. "Sorry," I said finally, all joking aside. His slab-of-granite face was back, and his eyes were more than slightly unamused. I hated when he got all expressionless. It made me very uncomfortable. I crossed my hands over my stomach, lacing my fingers as I gazed meekly at the ceiling. I tapped my two pointer fingers together thoughtfully. Then I tilted my head over to look at him. "I'll eat something now. If you really want me to." There, that should make him happy.

He got up without a word and walked to the table. When he came back, he held a shiny wrapped bar in his hand. It was a protein bar. The kind marathoners buy when they need to load up on necessary nutrients. It had like a gazillion calories in it, but I didn't care. I had been vomiting up solid foods and existing solely on Gatorade and popsicles for the last two days. I needed something more. I took it from him, barely succeeding to get the wrapper off. Curse my shaky, weak hands. This was exactly why I needed actual sustenance.

After that, Dean didn't really talk to me. I think he didn't know what to say. I didn't blame him. If it was just me and my gigantic manly brother for years, and all of a sudden a much younger, much more female person needed my help, it would be weird. I wouldn't know how to deal, either. He probably didn't know whether he should be helping me or just letting me be.

I scoffed at the thought, not knowing which one I wanted either. Life was funny like that.

I choked down the protein bar, commanding my stomach to accept it. I think, through sheer force of will, it worked, and it stayed down. Score: Riley one, traitorous vomit sac zero.

I was also very careful to not let Dean sneak me any more pain pills. Of course, then I had to deal with the pain. It was a definite downside. On the upside, a messed up head and constant pain really does make time fly. Or jumble into a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. Either way, it made checking the time completely irrelevant.

The hours just floated by without much notice.

In fact, right now, I had no idea what time it was. It was possibly later afternoon, but it didn't really matter. I moved, the pain spiked. I lay still, the pain receding. The pounding in my head was ebbing and flowing in direct accordance with my physical activity, and it was exhausting.

"I am getting up," I announced, for probably the ninth time that day. Dean didn't bother to answer, but I heard the chair scrape against the floor. I could have tried to keep my pride and let him know that I didn't need help, but it hadn't worked the last eight times.

I slid my legs over to the edge of the bed and sat up, feeling the tempo of the base drum in my head increase. It was manageable, though, so I pushed through it. I put my hands on either side of my body and levered myself up. Sure enough, as soon as I stood, my head exploded into pain, and I was falling. Well, it wasn't falling exactly. It was more of a leaning issue—one where I was in so much disorientating pain that I just kind of leaned over and collapsed on the nearest object.

Which, in this case, happened to be Dean. Again. Just like the first eight times. Dean, at least, let me try and get up before unceremoniously dumping me on the bed again. Maybe he liked to see my pathetic, slightly hilarious failures. It was quite possibly the only entertainment he was going to get until Sam got back.

His arms were around me now, and I could feel his breath tickling the top of my head. It was weird, being aware of something like that when the rest of my senses were on the fritz. Like the fact that I could feel Dean's breath, but my vision was blacked out with pain.

"What is it this time?" Dean asked, voice rough. I was falling in love with that voice. It was a voice that made everything seem okay, even when it wasn't.

"Can't see," I gasped, pain receding enough that I could form words.

"Well, don't quote me on this, but I think opening your eyes helps." He sounded like he was smirking. I didn't know if it was possible to hear a smirk, but if so, I could hear his. Turd. Though if he was talking to me and smirking, then it at least meant that things were okay between us again.

The bed hit the back of my knees, and he tipped me over onto my back before walking away again. I opened my eyes—unaware that I had closed them in the first place—and stared up at the ceiling, crossing my arms over my stomach.

_ "Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure you have to push the throttle forward in order to make the boat move."_

The words echoed unbidden into my mind and with them came a violent sense of loss. Finn, it was him. I could feel it, the way a little kid feels the hole of a missing tooth with their tongue. The feeling was a constant reminder of what I'd lost, but the snatches of conversations and memories were still elusive, brought on by the most random of things.

"You're remembering something." Dean wasn't asking, he knew. Somehow he always knew. Definite mind juju. I turned my head over to look at him, and then I closed my eyes, unwilling to face the curiosity and the weird silent pity in his green eyes.

He had said it would come to this, that I would get in over my head. And now I was, quite literally, in over my head. My head was a mess, and I didn't know how to move on or fix it.

"Finn," I pleaded, wishing for once that his name would just trigger the rest of my memories. Gah, stupid brain.

"Who's Finn?" Dean probed gently. But I couldn't answer. I couldn't answer because I didn't really know. I just knew that I wanted Finn here with me.

"Finn," I said again, more quietly this time, having pushed Dean entirely out of my headspace. Bring it on, brain. I can take it.

_"You got a proclivity for pyrotechnics, Tara Lynn?" _

_ "This is a Glock. You feed the clip in like this, and then you click the safety off. Got it?"_

_ "You're a special kind of crazy, Riley." _

A tear streaked down my cheek, and something was put to my lips. I opened my mouth, accepting what ended up being water and then turned on my side. Insistent hands turned me back over, nudging pills and more water on me. I refused them. I didn't care about the pain. I just wanted Finn—the mystery guy only half-written in my thoughts.

"You're really starting to freak me out, kiddo," Dean said quietly. I extracted myself from my redundant party of self-pity and shattered reminders of Finn. Yes, I could see how this was hard on Dean. I was being reclusive and having partial mental breakdowns, and he didn't know how to fix it. And Dean was a fixer. He didn't like things broken and out of place. If he could do something about it, he would. That's what made him such a good brother.

So yes, I was being selfish, and I could see how my psychotic—because there really was no other word for it—behavior was kind of freaky. I wrenched my eyes open with monumental effort and rubbed a sleeve over them. _Suck it up, Ri,_ I told myself scathingly.

"You didn't have to come," I told Dean quietly, rolling onto my back yet again. I couldn't hold his gaze for very long, but I managed to brave a few seconds of the piercing green.

He stared me down, not bothering to dignify that with a response. It was just as well, because suddenly I was chasing the rabbit down the hole, and Dean faded from my mind.

_"You didn't have to come." Finn. The turd thought he could put the responsibility squarely on my shoulders. He was like, I totally asked you here, but really, you didn't have to come. Yeah, right, bucko. _

_ I glanced over at him, shaking my head."Even morons need friends."_

_ He snorted, but kept driving the boat towards the island. "You know, you can say no. I won't…I won't be offended." He was almost shy when he said it, which made the sentiment all the more sweet. _

_ I fingered the strap on my backpack and thought about it. "I could. But then there'd be no one to look after your sorry butt." I didn't tell him that if he ever really needed my help, I would be there in a heartbeat. Saying no probably wouldn't even cross my mind. It certainly hadn't this time. He'd called, and I'd shown up—simple as that. _

"Riley?" I blinked, dropping back into reality with Dean. I sighed, blinking slowly while I cleared the most recent memory out of my vision.

"Yeah," I told him. "You're right." He hadn't said anything, but we were both thinking it. When someone needs you, you go. It wasn't a Hunting thing; that was just us. That was him, that was Sam, and somehow, I knew that was Finn. Someone needs help, you dang well better show up because _you're_ the help.

"Thanks for coming." And there it was. The thing that had been grating at my pride. He'd said I would mess up, and I had. He'd also said he wouldn't come, but he had. And that deserved thanks. Even more than that…

"Thanks for staying," I said, voice breaking as I did. Because Lord knew I couldn't do this on my own.

I dropped a hand to my side and used the other to swipe away the tears welling up in my eyes. Frigging cry-fest. But Dean's warm, callused hand slipped around mine, and he gave it a little squeeze. That was it. That was all it took: thanks and apology accepted.

I let out a shuddered breath. I felt better, now that it was off my chest. "I can almost see his face, now," I told Dean.

"Finn, who is he?" Dean was cautious, and rightfully so. My brain tended to implode when Finn came up in the conversation.

"I don't know. Another Hunter, I think." I was calm, eerily calm. "I'm getting close, though. I'm getting close. I can feel it." And I was. Before, it had felt like I was just flailing against the unknown, trying to scrape together any stray memory that crossed my path. Now it was different. Now, I was facing a scrambled knot of memories, and all I had to do was push through to the center of it all, and I would have my answers.

"I don't know," I said again quietly. "But I'm going to find out sooner or later."


	6. Imma Kill You, Dean Winchester

Disclaimer: The Winchesters do not belong to me.

A/N: Sorry for the long update time. I really struggled writing this chapter (also because I had a Teen Wolf fic kicking around my brain, taking up space until I wrote it out as well). Yes, I watch Teen Wolf. I'm not ashamed to admit it! :P Anyways, review? *not so casual shrug* *spastic shrug* *dislocated shoulder from too much shrugging*

* * *

"I found your car," Dean announced, his words barely penetrating the fuzzy cloud that was my usual morning sleep-induced haze.

"I like my car," I informed him through a long yawn.

"I know you do," he said seriously. "I've been doing sweeps of the mostly likely motels that you used while you were here. Finally got a hit when I saw your Civic outside one of the rooms. Apparently, that particular room was rented until the end of the week under the name of William Darcy."

I snorted. But Dean didn't understand. "Mister Fitzwilliam Darcy is one of my favorite characters from _Pride and Prejudice_," I told him. I had no recollection of a motel room, but that was definitely something Finn would have done, playing off the knowledge of one of my books-turned-movies that I'd told him about. I even remembered the time when I told him about it. Yay for me.

Pushing myself upright, I knuckled the nighttime crusties out of my eyes. "Imma come with you," I told him sleepily, glancing around for my shoes. They were nowhere to be seen. Hmm. That was a problem.

"Yeah, no. That's not happening," Dean told me, barely looking up from the coffee cup in front of him. "If you can stand up for more than ten minutes at a time, then we'll go get it. Until you can do that, I'm just going to wait for Sam. He said he'd be back later today."

I scowled at him, mostly because he was right. That seemed to be the case lately. Dean was constantly right. I was about to say something, just to make sure he wasn't getting a big head, when he stood up abruptly. "I'm going out. You are staying here."

I yawned at him, figuring that was as good a confirmation as any. Dean looked up. "I need a little 'me' time," he said. I raised my eyebrows. Yeah, right. Dean's version of "me time" probably included a lady friend wearing very little clothing. Or maybe a bar and some pool tables. Either way, I wasn't going to miss out on anything. Of that much, at least, I was certain.

He tossed me another protein bar. "Eat."

I considered telling him that I would eat it later, but it looked like he was just going to wait around and make sure I did. Jeez, nutritional Nazi. I choked the bar down, feeling it settle heavily in my stomach. Dean waited, probably making sure it stayed down. Then, fifteen minutes later, he headed out.

I promptly went to the bathroom and let the swirling dervish in my stomach explode out of my mouth. Yuck. I really needed to be able to keep food down for longer. But maybe I had at least absorbed partial nutrients. It _had_ been in my stomach for fifteen minutes. Maybe that was enough.

As I pushed myself off the ground onto shaky legs, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. Double yuck. My face was pale and oily, and my hair was greasy. I looked disgusting. Dean had said I wasn't able to stand up for more than ten minutes, and I knew he was probably right. So my shower would have to be less than nine minutes. It was going to happen, one way or another. My general appearance had already decided that.

But hey, for now I was upright, mobile, and relatively prepared to stay that way. Shucking out of my clothes, I turned the shower as hot as I could tolerate, not wanting any flashback to almost drowning again. Once under the steamy spray, I realized that there was no shampoo or conditioner, so I just used a handful of the manly body wash. It worked well enough, and I got out with shaky legs and a vaguely pounding head. T minus two minutes until crash.

Toweling myself off, I slipped back into my clothes and made my way back to the beds. Thirty seconds later, I stared at the edge of the bed, too intimidated to try climbing on. My limbs felt like jelly, and I'm pretty sure my shower had worked better than the pain pills in putting me to sleep. Besides, Sam was going to be back sometime today, and there would once again be a bed shortage.

Finally, with a minute to spare, I decided to just drag a pillow off the bed and sleep in the small walkway between beds. My physical crash was imminent, and the space was the perfect size for me to lie down and curl up—as much as my ribs would allow. So, I lay down, pushing my damp hair to the back and dropping my head onto the pillow. I was out before I even recognized the peaceful pull of sleep.

* * *

My nose itched. It was the deciding factor in the process of waking up. I let out a tiny yawn and brought a finger up to itch it. I felt better, I noticed. Maybe the shower had done more good than I'd originally thought. I was warm, and Sam's jacket was the perfect cocoon to keep me that way.

Wait, Sam's jacket. I rolled onto my back slowly, taking note of the heavy brown jacket draped over me. Yep, definitely Sam's, which meant that he was back. A noise off to the left confirmed it. There was a groan, followed by a sharp intake of breath. Hmm, that didn't sound good. I sat up slowly, letting the jacket fall into my lap. Sam was sitting on the second bed, his hand resting oddly on his knee. It took me a few seconds to realize that two of his fingers were not bent at the correct angle.

He took another deep breath, reaching over to grab the misshapen finger, but he never got very far, gasping in pain before anything really happened. Oh, I understood. He was trying to relocate his fingers. Ew. And he was totally failing, too.

I struggled upright, and it was slow going on account of the pain. I pushed through it, though, not the least bit interested in lying down anymore. Sam glanced up when I wobbled over, taking in my general fatigued appearance. Yeah, I was definitely not winning any beauty pageants. What else was new?

"What?" I asked him, when his gaze lingered just a little too long.

"I—nothing. Just…you're off your pain meds," he said hesitantly. I snorted, as if there were any question about it. Why, yes. Yes, I was. That was the good part about being stuck with the brother who didn't like doctors, pain meds, or a shmoopy Riley.

"Pills or no pills, today?" Dean had asked this morning, running a hand over his jaw as he cast a speculative eye over me.

"No pills," I had grunted. And we had left it at that, one and done.

I snorted in remembrance—wondering if maybe Dean and I were just a little too alike for our own good—and turned to face Sam. "What gave it away?" Was it my cheery countenance, or the fact that my gaunt albino look was making a reappearance? He could take his pick.

"Dean doesn't like to take pain meds either. I see the pale, shaky look a lot with him. He doesn't like the way they make him feel." Sam sounded reminiscent and more than a little annoyed. He was probably one of those guys who thought the doctors knew what they were doing and that their instructions should be followed to the T.

"Can't think when I'm on them." I was blunt, and we both knew what I was talking about.

"How's that coming, by the way? Do you remember anything more?" he asked politely.

"Pieces," I said somewhat bitterly. Sore subject. Wanting to get away from the topic, I motioned for Sam to give me his hand, and he did so with definite wariness. His ring and index fingers were grotesquely out of place, very obviously dislocated. That was fine though, because there was no blood. And no blood meant Doctor Riley was in the house.

"Relax," I told Sam, gently probing the oddly angled fingers. "I've done this multiple times with multiple brothers. And you've caught me on a good day. My mental sobriety is at its peak." He hissed when I grazed a particular painful spot with my fingertip, and I let his hand go, diagnosis done. Sam's other hand was glued to his thigh, and I wondered if he'd have bruises from gripping it so tightly. "I can see why you couldn't do these for yourself. The angle needed for a clean relocation is atrocious."

"Can we just—" he cleared his throat "—get to the fixing part?" Hmph, maybe he should be the one on pain meds. But no, his fingers wouldn't hurt in a few minutes. At least not right away; they'd be sore for days after, though.

I waved my hands out, loosening my wrists and wiggled my fingers, which was my version of a pre-game warm up. Then I took a deep breath. Okay, I was ready. "This is the worst part," I warned Sam, picking up his hand gingerly. "It's gonna hurt like a mother trucker for a second, then you'll be golden."

He nodded, face tight with pain and lips pressed into a bloodless line. He'd done this before, then. "Okay, on three," I said. "One—"

I didn't even bother with two or three. I just went on the count of one. It was less of a dramatic build-up, I always felt. Sam's face tightened but he didn't make a noise, which I thought was quite admirable. Then I tightened my grip on his hand and prepared to do the next finger.

This time I didn't even count. I just eased the finger over and straightened it back into its joint with a meaty little pop. Sam let out a strangled groan, his eyes seemingly rolling up in his head for a second as he closed them. I held his shoulder for a second, until he opened his eyes again.

"Yay, good job," I told him, slightly breathless. Going to the shopping bag Dean had left by the TV, I pulled out an instant ice-pack and broke the capsule inside. Shaking and massaging the bag around until the whole thing was cold, I gently settled it on Sam's hand, which was now resting on his knee.

"Done and done." I patted his other knee kindly. "Try not to use those two fingers too much. I can even tape them for you if you want."

"No, I'm good. Thanks." He adjusted the icepack a little, and I just shrugged, wanting to lie down now. My head hurt again, and this time, Sam was here, so I couldn't just yell into a pillow. I sat down on the floor again, easing myself backwards so that my ribs didn't throw a hissy fit.

"You're kind of good at fixing people, you know?" I cracked one eye open and fixed it on Sam. He was looking down at me from the bed, his forehead wrinkled thoughtfully. I had no clue what gave him that idea. Show me some blood, and I was reduced to a blathering idiot.

_"Riley, you have to let the breath out. You were supposed to take a deep breath and let it out." _

Finn. I remembered that one. He had been talking me through how to stitch up a gunshot wound. It was nice of that memory to drop by, though. I could almost picture Finn's face now.

I waved a hand, dismissing Sam's comment, before dropping my arm over my eyes. "My brothers. They were always breaking themselves and never bothering to put themselves back together again. And my parents were always too squeamish to do it. And Libby, of course, was a walking menace, so that left me to bat clean-up. It's no biggie. One time, I even stitched up a gunshot wound." I didn't tell him that I had wanted to vomit before, during, and after the patch job.

"You were shot?" Sam sounded a little alarmed.

I waved my hand again. "No, Finn was. Serial killer in Shoreline, Washington. The guy was using a ghost to kill college girls. Finn and I stopped him. Well, Finn did."

Gah, this was terrible. I had this weird energy, but nothing to do with it. I wanted to walk around, but I was also really wobbly and achy. In the end, I got up again and walked to the table. Then I sat down, having made the trip over easily enough, but not yet ready for the return portion. Sam's duffel bag was sitting on the table. It was lying half open, and I ruffled through it shamelessly. Pain makes you do bold things.

Something small and black caught my attention, and I held up the oddly sleek remains of a walkman, one with a line of LED lights on the top. "What's this?"

"EMF detector," Sam said absently. "It detects any electromagnetic energy that spirits give off."

"Whoa," I said, delighted. "And you built it out of an old cassette player?"

"Dean built it." Sam said it casually enough, but there was an undeniable hint of pride in that statement.

I grinned, totally able to see that. Dean, sitting hunched over at table with random junk spread out in front of him. His face would have been serious and focused as he tinkered and built, using whatever he had around him at the time to make something utterly useful and fabulous.

I sobered, recognizing something that I would bet most people missed about Dean. "Dean's pretty smart. He might be snarky and sarcastic, but at the end of the day, he's kind of genius—in his own way."

Dean was constantly making references, and not just about movies or celebrities. I had noticed some high end literary ones, which meant that sometime between sleeping and Hunting and driving, Dean had found time to read.

Sam's mouth twitched up in a half-smile. "Yeah," he said quietly. "He is."

After that, I set one arm on the table and propped my chin on it. Sam dropped onto his back on the bed, staring up and the ceiling and yawning. He was tired, then. I offered him one of the ghastly protein bars Dean had bought for me, but he declined. Smart man.

To pass the time, I turned on the TV, broadening Sam's horizons by forcing him to watch Doctor Who with me. He snorted every time the Doctor said "Amy Pond," but he watched it nonetheless. I think he was too tired to argue with me.

Eventually, the Impala rumbled in the parking lot, marking the return from Dean's "me time." Dean came back into the motel room with a grin on his face, and I didn't have to be a genius to know which version of he'd chosen.

I gave him a disdainful look, but he just laughed. Turd. Then he caught sight of Sam, half asleep on the bed.

"You hurt?" Dean's grin faded, and his voice was sharp with concern, which made me immediately realize just why Sam had refused the tape job and had stopped using the icepack in the last fifteen or so minutes.

Dean tossed his duffel on the free bed and walked over to Sam, looking him over carefully for a second. Then he motioned impatiently for Sam's hand. Sam surrendered it reluctantly, and I watched as Dean inspected the two semi-swollen fingers. "Dislocated. Bet they were a bitch to deal with."

"Riley," was all Sam deigned to say.

"I'm going to tape them," Dean asserted.

Sam protested, arguing the need to be able to type, but Dean was having none of it. "Save it, Sam. I'm taping them." Sam fell quiet, and I snorted in my head. Hah, it wasn't just me that Dean bullied, then. Whatever. It was nice, in a way.

After taping Sam's fingers, Dean paced around the room. "I found Riley's car. We need to go get it in the next twenty-four hours, or it'll be towed."

Sam nodded, pushing himself to his feet tiredly. "How far?"

Dean cast a careful look over his brother, but Sam missed it as he raised his arms and stretched. Finally, Dean gave a nod, like Sam had passed his inspection. "Twenty minutes from here."

He looked like he was going to tell me to stay put, but I was already lying down on the floor again, wrapped in Sam's jacket. It smelled nice. I would have to revisit my multiple plots to steal it from Sam. I yawned again and let my eyes drift shut. There was apparently a lot of sleeping involved when healing. I couldn't complain, though. I happened to like my sleep. A lot. Maybe too much. I dozed, not even noticing when the Winchesters left or even returned.

* * *

Dean woke me up with a brisk shake of my shoulder, and the clock told me it was a couple hours later. "Eat," he said. Ugh, I didn't want to. I was just going to throw it up again. But I ate anyways, just to humor him. Surprisingly enough, the protein bar stayed down this time.

I went back to dozing until Dean's very quiet, very dangerous words broke through my mental snooze.

"What is this?" Dean asked in a deadly calm tone. My eyes opened, and I wished I had just kept them shut. He was holding up my Hunting backpack in one hand and my salt gun in the other. "A toy gun. Is this how you've been Hunting? No wonder you got your ass handed to you."

I scowled at him and was on my feet quickly to rescue my gun from his hands. "It's a salt gun. I modified it to shoot high velocity rounds of rock salt. Not all of us can run around with sawed-off shotguns and a nine millimeter Taurus."

Sam looked up at the mention of his gun, but he didn't say anything. That was the extent of his interaction—silent neutrality from the peanut gallery. Awesome. Then again, he barely looked awake, so I couldn't really blame him.

I wanted to tell Dean how well my gun worked, but suddenly there was a burning hitch behind my lungs, and I couldn't draw any breath against the ragged shards of agony ricocheting through my chest and back. Oops, maybe I had stood up to quickly. I closed my mouth and pretended that I was annoyed. It was better than the truth—that I suddenly couldn't breathe for no discernible reason.

I turned away from Dean, not wanting him to see the tears that were prickling up on account of the pain. My head was starting to spin, telling me that I needed to bring in fresh oxygen and dispel the carbon dioxide building up in my blood stream. But I couldn't, because my body simply refused. Planting a knee against the edge of the bed, I used it to anchor myself upright when the dizziness swept over me.

A hand slammed into my back, just over my lungs, and after a hot flash of agony, the rest of the pain was suddenly gone. I bent over the bed, sucked in grateful breaths and avoiding turning back to see Dean as the blackness creeping into my vision slowly dissipated. His hand remained on my back, just between my shoulder blades, and it was gentle, despite how hard he'd just hit me.

"Your lips were turning blue," he said, explaining even when I hadn't asked. It was really hard to be angry with him when he kept taking care of me.

I turned and took my backpack from him, not meeting his eyes. Unzipping one of the pockets and reaching inside, I felt a cold, familiar weight settle into my palm. Ah, yes. Maybe this would change his mind about my Hunting adequacies. I curled my fingers around the handle and pulled my newest toy free of the backpack.

Dean stared at the gun I held intently, looking from it to me several times.

"Glock," he said simply. His forehead wrinkled. "Interesting choice."

I shrugged. "Gets the job done." I didn't tell him that despite getting the job done, I hated pulling the trigger. Or, more accurately, the necessity and consequences of pulling the trigger.

Finn had given me the gun. That much I knew, and I vaguely remembered him taking me shooting. It was a bit hazy, but I remembered.

"Do you know how to use it?" Dean asked, semi-curiously, but also in a slightly testy tone.

I met his gaze head-on. "Yes," I said steadily. "Finn taught me." On the bed, Sam's eyes narrowed, and the brothers traded a look.

"I think," Sam said slowly, "we should have a talk with Finn sometime."

I flung my hands in the air, exasperated. "Oh, what is this? Are you my parents, now?"

"No. Your parents don't know anything about what you do, remember? And if they did, then maybe this could have been avoided. What are two kids even thinking, Hunting a wendigo?" Dean's tone was sharp, and it made my hackles rise.

"Oh, I get it. This is about you not thinking I'm good enough to be a Hunter! Be normal, Riley. Don't Hunt, Riley. You think I'm not good enough!" I was pissed, and it evident in the sheer heat of my words.

"I know you're not," Dean said harshly, his voice raising a notch. "You just jumped into this, thinking it was all some kind of game. Some hobby. Hunting is a lifestyle, Riley. You can't pretend to be normal, splitting your time between two different lives. This is exactly the kind of shit that gets you, or the people around you, hurt. No wonder your boyfriend is comatose in the ICU."

I jerked back, feeling like he'd just slapped me. "What?" I whispered, feeling like the floor under my feet had just collapsed and left me reeling. "What did you just say?"

Dean's face was tight with anger, but there was something in his eyes. I would have said regret, but that wasn't quite right. It was more of a cold resignation.

No. He wouldn't have.

No.

He'd known. He'd known this entire time, and he'd let me agonize over not knowing what had happened to Finn. He'd let me go on wondering if Finn was dead, if I hadn't been able to save him.

I wanted to launch myself at him and smash a fist into his face, but I wouldn't have even gotten close. No, it was better to bide my time. And when he least expected it, I was going to clock him.

So, instead of immediate action, I rearranged my face into iron, bringing up my willpower to match. "You will take me to him," I gritted out in a low voice. I tightened my grip on the gun in my hand. "You will take me to him, or God forbid, I will take myself."


	7. One Day At A Time

Disclaimer: Winchesters, not mine, the usual.

* * *

_The cave was dark, darker than I expected. The light from the entrance didn't carry very far apparently. After our eyes adjusted to the dimness, we crept further into the rounded stone tunnel. Finn followed me in, and I could hear his soft breaths behind me. I tried to be as quiet as possible, taking slow, careful steps. _

_ It didn't take long before the large, sloping walls of the cave came to an abrupt two way split. Finn tapped my shoulder, motioning for me to go left, and he would go right. I stared at him with narrow eyes, knowing that it was always the people who suggest splitting up that get killed in horror movies. It was a stupid tactical decision, so I shook my head. Finn looked a little taken aback, probably not used to noncompliance. Then he scowled and shoved past me, going right anyways. I lingered, not wanting to annoy him by following but also not wanting to go down a long tunnel by myself and get separated from Finn. _

_ In the end, I needn't have worried. The two tunnels converged again in a small cavern. There was a small pool of water, and next to it was a lump. It was a large lump, and it wasn't moving. Finn motioned for me to stay back, then he entered. Crouching next to the lump, he reached out and touched one end of it. Oh, it was a body, then, and he was feeling for a pulse. A second later, he stood and shook his head at me. Not alive. _

_ That was when the wendigo showed up. At first it wasn't there, and then it just appeared. It was tall and human-like, and it looked like the grayish skin was barely able to stretch over every single pronounced bone. Finn must have seen the terror on my face, because he spun, a flare already shooting towards the wendigo. It moved out of the way in a blur, ending up between Finn and I. Then there was moment when we were—all three of us—very, very still. _

_ The wendigo was playing with us, I decided, trying to choose which of us to kill first. Not a second later, it chose. With a movement faster than I could track, the wendigo appeared in front of Finn, knocking him backwards and standing over him. _

_ Its hand went high in the air and came down, faster than I could scream. Blood flew in an answering arc, and I felt like someone had just ripped out my heart. My thumb flicked to life on the lighter, and almost without thought, I lit the fuses of all three Roman Candles. Then I screamed. _

_ Thirty exploding fireballs later, I'd scored two direct hits on the fast moving wendigo. Turns out, not even _it_ could dodge the path of randomly shot, wildly explosive fireworks in a small, condensed space. As the wendigo flailed distractedly—its forearm on fire—I hit it with the endgame. _

_I flung the jar with its flaming fuse, and it shattered against the wendigo's stomach. The rubbing alcohol splashed over its torso and chest before catching fire. It was pretty gnarly scene—the wendigo staggering forward, wreathed in flames. I backed up, finding myself at a loss. I hadn't quite considered what to do if it didn't go down right away. _

_ The wendigo let out a shriek, and I managed to dive to the side as it lunged forward at me. The side of my head cracked painfully against a rocky outcrop, and I lay there dazed for a second, ears starting to ring again. What was it with hitting my head and getting a ringing in my ears? But it was okay, the wendigo's shrieks stopped, and there was merciful silence. Well, what I assumed was silence through the stupid ringing. _

_ I crawled over to Finn. The wendigo had not torn out his throat like I'd originally thought. He was so still, though, that I thought he was dead. There were three gaping wounds across his stomach, and my shaking hand ran up his shirt, coming away covered in blood._

_ He was bleeding. Badly. But bleeding meant his heart was still beating, and that meant he was still alive. I changed from shell-shocked to all business in a matter of seconds. _

_ The three claw marks were deep enough that I thought he'd bleed out within an hour. Without a further thought, I pulled off my outer shirt, folded it into a rough pad, and slammed it down over the seeping slash marks. Then I dive-bombed Finn's belt with blood-slick fingers, pulling it loose of his pants and feeding it under his body. Once it was in place, I tightened it as much as possible, using it to cinch the pad down._

_ Once the bleeding was dealt with, I heaved Finn's arms up over my shoulders, almost wearing him like a cape, and dragged him out of the cave. He started to wake up when I reached the entrance. Maybe it was the light that revived him. Either way, I got under his shoulder, and we started back to the boat. _

_ I didn't know how we made it through the woods without one or both of us dying. But we did, me holding Finn up, and him showing me the way out. We got back to the boat, and I jumped in, helping Finn lower himself onto the padded bench in the back of the boat. Then he passed out, and I screamed at him to help me. _

_ I flung the lines holding the boat to the dock free, and then I returned to Finn, slapping him while I cried and pleaded for him to wake up. He didn't. So I moved back to the steering wheel and tried to start the boat myself. I'd watched him do it earlier, but I hadn't paid much attention. Even so, I got it started, but we still weren't moving. That was when Finn, stupid turd, cracked an eye open. _

_ "Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure you have to push the throttle forward in order to make the boat move," he said. I turned, letting out a sob. "Don't worry about me," he said more seriously. "Just get us back to the mainland. The rest will take care of itself." Then his eyes rolled up, and I starting crying harder. _

_ Jamming the lever that I assumed to be the throttle forward, I left the dock like a bat out of hell. Except then I slowed down, wary of debris in the water. It was tedious, my snail's pace, and I wanted to scream with how slow I had to go. But eventually the water cleared, and I was soon racing over it like a pro._

_ It might have been fun, had Finn not been lying in the back while possibly bleeding to death. The light was fading, but I still new where I was going. Faint lights from the mainland shone over the water like little beacons. They got larger and larger until something hit the engine, and it died in a terrible cracking noise. _

_ The entire boat jerked, and I was thrown forward, smashing my side painfully into the very chair that I was supposed to be sitting in. When the pain cleared, I immediately checked on Finn. He hadn't changed. So that was good, at least. But then sick realization hit me. _

_ "No, no, no," I sobbed frantically, doing everything I could to get the boat started again. Nothing worked. It wouldn't even turn over. I ran to the back of the boat, leaning over to see if anything was blocking the propeller. I couldn't see anything. It was too dark. So I jumped in, knowing that sticking my hand near a propeller in the pitch black was a terrible, terrible idea. _

_ Letting Finn die because I had stupidly run into something was also a terrible idea. So I went for it with wild abandon. Searching desperately in the water for the propeller blades, I sliced my hand on one, but I ignored the pain as I felt around for obstructions. A small chunk of wood came free, but nothing else. Shivering and soaking wet, I heaved myself back aboard and tried again to start the engine. Nothing. _

_ There were no rows to manually carry us to shore, either. I checked and double checked. Then I screamed at the sky, hating that safety was just a few tantalizing miles away. The boat bobbed up and down on the waves, and I stared at the lights on shore. Then I stumbled back to Finn's side. The bandage I'd made was soaked through, and his pulse was much weaker. I held my hands up in front my face, horrified to see them slick with blood. Finn's blood. _

_ Then I gritted my teeth and dragged Finn to the side of the boat. Staring at the twinkling reflections of light on the water, I jumped in again. And, after lunging back up the side of the boat to grab him, I pulled Finn in after me. _

_ The cold water seemed to constrict my chest, filling me with panic. My muscles wanted to freeze, locked in a single rigid position, but I fought through it. I couldn't give in to the gentle, welcoming numbness the water provided. I flailed a hand out of the icy water and yanked Finn's head above the water line. His stillness scared me, but he was breathing. That's what mattered. I let my panic go, my fight to keep Finn's head above water driving out any spare thought I had to give. Instead, vicious determination flooded me. I picked a single light in the distance, and I swam for it with all my might, dragging Finn through the water behind me. _

_ It was hard, and there were obstacles. Literally, obstacles, since one particularly strong wave buffeted me into a giant pillar of some type. I lost all my breath, and pain exploded in my side, making me spin uselessly in the water. My hand left Finn's collar, and I pushed through the agony, knowing I'd never forgive myself if I lost Finn on the way to shore. _

_ I snagged his shirt a few seconds later, though, and after reorienting myself, started swimming again. It wasn't much longer before my feet hit the sand, and I slowed to a slow shamble. Keeping Finn afloat, I struggled to walk through the icy water. My legs were tired, and it hurt to breath, but I kept at it. The water level lowered from my nose to my chin. Then from my neck to my chest, and then I was crashing down in the sand, heaving for breath._

_ "Finn," I cried, scrabbling at his shoulder. He was cold and still. Too cold, too still. _

"Finn!" I jackknifed upward, calling out for him. Then I sank backwards, dropping my head to my pillow and trying to massage the sharpness out of my ribs.

Finn. Stupid, stupid Finn who had insisted on splitting up. Finn who had gotten his stomach slashed by a monster. Finn who no longer haunted my memories. I had finally unlocked them all, and I knew who he was. Finn—currently in a coma.

Last night, I had gone to the hospital to see him. I had climbed up every flight of stairs, ignoring the pain and dizziness, because we'd needed to avoid elevators and any doctors or nurses that might recognize us. I had taken every painful step, my will forged of pure, cold fury.

Dean had tried to follow me into the room, but I had shut the door in his face. Then I'd turned, drinking in one long look at Finn's still form. That's all it had taken for the remainder of the memories to come rushing in. I'd remembered everything.

It had taken awhile before I could stop shaking, longer yet before I'd been able to stand. I'd sat at Finn's side, telling him whatever popped into my mind. I'd talked, and he'd listened, unable to do anything more than that.

After I had run out of words, I'd left. Plain and simple.

Dean had stood, having been waiting outside for me, and then we'd exited the hospital the same way we'd come in. I hadn't said anything to him since the time when he'd dropped the bomb on me, and it had been easier that way.

We had been silent on our way back to the motel. Then, cold and numb, I had dropped onto the second bed, curled up on my side, and cried myself to sleep. I hadn't cared that that Dean was watching me, hadn't cared that he didn't have a place to sleep. I'd just been trying to deal with the raw pain that was tearing me up inside. I'd thought that sleeping on it would make it better.

It hadn't worked. It was still there, now that I was awake. It was still pounding inside of me. Slow tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, running down the sides of my head. I didn't move to wipe them away.

On the bed across from me, Sam stirred restlessly, and I rolled my head to the side to watch him. "Jess," he murmured with the kind of hitched breath that tells of nothing but pain. He rolled onto his side, curling in on himself as one hand clutched a handful of blanket into a twisted mess. "Jess."

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, it was a regular cry-fest in here.

I eased myself upward, dropping my legs over the edge of the bed. I wasn't wearing enough to go outside, just a pair of basketball shorts and a long sleeve shirt. But I didn't care. I wanted out. I wanted out, and I wanted to stop the oppressive, ever-present ache in my chest.

Pulling my converse on, I opened the door and slipped out. It was cold, but I took a deep breath of fresh air regardless. Closing the motel door behind me, I sat on the bench outside the room and tucking my knees up, resting my chin on them. Wrapping my arms around my legs, I stared out over the parking lot. The Impala, beauty that she was, sat in front of our room. The lights from the obligatory light poles washed the area with orange-white glow. It was peaceful, I decided. Still didn't make me feel better, but peaceful nonetheless.

The door opened, and I turned. While I was expecting to see the ever-watchful Dean, I got Sam instead. He walked out, sucking in a deep breath, not unlike mine upon exiting the room. Then he turned, as if unsurprised to see me perched on the bench.

It creaked a little when he sat beside me. I dropped my chin back onto my knees, thinking it funny that Sam's long legs stretched comically far. Then I closed my eyes and scrunched my face in embarrassment, remembering what I'd told the doctor when I'd been a little drugged up. Gosh, I was such an idiot. Whatever, it didn't matter in the long run.

"Couldn't sleep?" I asked eventually, when the silence became too unnerving. I glanced over at him, resting my cheek on my knee and peeking over my arm. But Sam said nothing, just put his arm over the back of the bench and leaned back with a sigh.

"Me neither," I said softly, more to myself than him. Then all of a sudden he stood. I didn't bother looking up at him this time. If he wanted to talk, he would. If not, he wouldn't. It was the patented Winchester way.

I was surprised when his jacket fell down around my shoulders and cocooned me. In fact, I hadn't even realized I was cold until the warmth settled over me in comparison. I stuffed my arms down the sleeves and pulled the front closed over my legs. "Thanks," I said as he sat back down.

We sat there for a long time. I didn't know how long. Time seems to pass all funny when you're locked inside your own dark thoughts.

"Who was Jess?" I didn't have the right to ask, but I couldn't stop myself. It was just part of who I was.

The breath came shuddering out of Sam, like I'd just hit him in the gut or something. He sat upright, tiredly rubbing a hand over his face. "Jess…Jess was the girl I was going to marry." That was it. That was all he said, and yet, that was all it took.

She was dead. That kind of pain, the loneliness that he carried—it took a death to bring that on.

_People get into Hunting for a lot of reasons. Revenge, vengeance, obligation, because they like it… It's a rare find when you run into a Hunter that does it just because they can._

I pushed my forehead against my knees, trying to desperately not to cry. Of course the first thing to pop into my head would be from Finn. I'd only been thinking about him for a week straight. Typical scumbag brain.

_Why are you a Hunter?_ I sent the thought drifting towards Sam, studying his profile. Was it revenge or vengeance? Obligation? Or just because he could? It was probably a mixture of all of them, I decided. The Winchesters were like that. They had so many sides to them, a girl could get whiplash, just from trying to follow it all.

Dean, well, Dean was different. Dean genuinely liked killing things. He liked taking monsters down and saving the damsel in distress. So did Sam. But there was the difference between them. If there was a world where people didn't need to be saved, Sam probably wouldn't be out looking for monsters to gank. Dean would, but not Sam. Sam didn't like killing; it was a necessity for him. With Dean, it was an art. Lock and load, get the bad guy.

I wasn't sure where I sat in that particular spectrum. I didn't like killing, but I had no problem with it. Monster, kill it. Parasite, kill it. Corpse, burn it. Basically, do what needed to be done so that good, innocent people didn't have to.

It only took a minute to realize that Hunters were basically just a bunch of serial killers with really, really good motives. I mean, we kill things for a living. Who the heck does that?

People with nothing left to lose. That's who.

The revelation made me sad, and I had to philosophically disengage before I went too deep and decided to write a book about the joys of self-discovery and emotional emancipation.

"We were Hunting a wendigo." I put it out there as a possible topic of conversation, and like before, Sam didn't say anything. I didn't care, though. I wanted to talk, wanted to distract myself from the pain. Distract Sam, too, maybe. "Flare guns, Roman Candles, and a Molotov cocktail made of rubbing alcohol."

When I said it out loud, it all seemed so childish. And yet, it had worked. I had killed the wendigo using the very tools Finn had scoffed at.

"What happened?" Sam finally spoke again, but he didn't ask if we'd killed it or not. That was interesting.

I remembered all of it now, but I spared him the details. "It had to decide which of us to attack. It chose Finn. Maybe thinking he was more of a threat. I don't know."

I remembered Finn going down and that thing crouching over him. Up the long, talon-ed hand had gone, and it'd come down again with a spray of blood.

I remembered the sick feeling, thinking it had just slashed Finn's throat. I remembered thinking he was dead even as I started firing the Candles off.

I even remembered brief snatches of the trip to the hospital. An elderly couple had found me, after I'd called Dean and passed out. I remember how cold the trip to the hospital was, dripping in the back of their car.

"He wasn't dead. I got him all the way back to the beach," I said. "I swam, dragged him with me the whole way. I remember crashing down into the sand, calling Dean."

My eyes started watering, and my throat felt like it was closing up. "There's just this…this…" I couldn't even come up with the words to articulate the mess I was feeling.

"Hole," Sam said quietly. "There's a hole, and it hurts, and you can't make it go away, because you don't know how."

I gave a shuddered sigh, because that was exactly how I felt even though my pain couldn't compare that of losing a fiancé. I tilted my head back, blinking rapidly, and willed tears not to fall. But they did anyways, rolling down my cheeks in unison.

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, the cry-fest had moved out here now.

I sighed, resting my chin on my knees again. "His name's Finn McAllister," I told Sam with a thick voice. "He asked me for help, and I showed up. I killed the wendigo, but not before it got him. Now he might never wake up. How do you even deal with something like that?"

Sam ran a hand through his hair. "One day at a time," he said slowly. "You just take it one day at a time."

I stared at him for a minute, digesting what he'd said. "Okay," I said finally. Then I stood. "I'm going to take a walk. I'll be back."

I didn't care that I looked like a weirdo wearing shorts in the middle of Michegan. I didn't care that I was wearing a warm, brown tent. I just started walking. And when I could no longer take the pain—agonizingly pounding and washing over me—I turned around and started walking back.

One day at a time. I could do that.

Today was a new day. I was going to get my stuff together, and then I was going to find a new motel. One without horrible memories. One without Winchesters. I was going to rebuild myself, one day at a time. And while I was at it, I was going to rebuild Finn, too.

One day at a time. I could do that.


	8. The One In Which Jaws Hit The Floor

Disclaimer: Winchesters, not mine. The yoush.

A/N: This chapter is kind of a rolling start of the next story, so there won't be a teaser. I will post another thingy in this story, though, to let you know when I am up and running on the next Riley adventure. Tally-ho!

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To Anna (the person who reviews as a guest): I wish I could respond to guest reviews. It's not possible, so I shall respond here, just this once. Anyways, no, I am not writing Riley from a place of experience. The worst thing that happened to me the day of writing the scene between Sam and Riley was finding out that my little brother ate the last of the cookies and didn't tell me. So if my extreme dismay somehow transferred over into the story, blame the loss of delicious chocolate chip cookies. It was either that or the years of emotional trauma wrought by TV shows. *cough cough* Supernatural. Merlin! Doctor Who. Firefly? Sherlock? Watching the deaths of that many fictional characters—it...it does things to a girl. :P Thanks for asking, though. I'm glad the emotion that I was trying to put into the chapter got through.

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Sam and Dean left a few days later. I think Sam got that I needed space. Dean got it too—when I made good on the hefty right hook I had been promising myself. He didn't see it coming, and hitting him definitely eased some of the anger I had towards him. After it was done, I let go of all the crap I had been holding onto, and the guys went on their way with no hard feelings. Well, Dean might have been pissed, but he'd get over it.

I found a motel room only a few blocks away from the hospital, and after a quick rummage through my trunk—breaking into the boxes of stuff that used to be in my dorm room—I visited Finn for the second time.

I'd heard that people in a coma can still hear and understand things. And one of Finn's nurses, a girl named Trixie, who was only a few years older than me, had suggested reading something to Finn. She'd said that he might recognize my voice, and it could help him wake up.

So I brought a book along. For a while, I just stared at Finn, taking in the peaceful, blank look on his face. His stomach was healing, and he was doing fine. In a coma, but fine.

I fingered the worn corner of my chosen book, staring down at it almost shyly. Then I opened the cover and began to read.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

I don't know how long I read. I didn't finish the book, though, so the next day I came back and started reading again. The day after that, I was back at it again. When I finally ran across the last page, I sat back. Finn hadn't changed, and I was still hurt. But that was okay, because I had time.

My next visit, I came back with the first Harry Potter. Then the second, and then the third. Days stretched into weeks, and we worked through the entire series. Sometimes, I just brought my sketchbooks, working away and talking to Finn about anything and everything I could think of. It got to the point where the nurses were no longer startled, seeing me holed up in Finn's room. There was one, Trixie, who brought me water on a daily basis. It was kind of her, and I made sure she knew I was grateful.

The next few weeks crawled by. There wasn't a lot to do. I finished up the quarter at school and forwent the customary trip to campus in favor of shipping my art portfolio via FedEx. It cost me like thirty dollars to ship all my giant sketchbooks and stuff, but my professors were more than understanding when I told them that my friend had been in an accident and was now in a coma.

I called my family, too, and for once, told them the truth. Or what was mostly the truth. I said that one of my friends from school had gotten into an accident, and I was in Michigan, staying with them. It was believable, and my parents could hear the pain in my voice when I talked about it.

I stopped killing monsters, for the most part. The most hunting I did was going to the bookstore and looking for new books to read Finn. When school started up again, I threw myself into it. I drew more than ever, and my professors were awed. They couldn't believe the emotion that was coming out in my drawings. I never told them that drawing was the only way to get the horrible fear and pain in my chest out.

Almost a month later, Sam emailed me to say that he'd finally tracked down Finn's mom. He'd called and left a message, apparently, to fill her in on what had happened. If she visited, or even got it, I didn't know. I never saw any sign that she came.

I continued to read to Finn.

He didn't wake up.

December rolled around. I soldiered on, determined that Finn would wake up any day now. I finished up the quarter and spent Christmas with Trixie. She and I had seen each other nearly every day for the last ten weeks, and somewhere along the road we'd become friends.

It wasn't until Trixie and I were sitting in her apartment in front of a tiny Christmas Tree that I finally broke down. Trixie had just told me to make a wish, and I started bawling. At a loss, she pushed my present into my hands and told me to unwrap it.

It was a little box. Sniffling and crying like a fool, I pulled the lid off and stared down at the colorful promotional flyer. It was an art show, set in two weeks. I stared at a few of the pieces shown on the glossy paper, and I recognized one of them. It was mine. Trixie slid a letter into my hands. It was post-dated a couple days ago, and it was already opened. I guess that's what you get for leaving your nosy friend to deal with your mail. "It's your work. They're showing your work," she whispered.

I sat, tears and no little amount of snot present as I stared down at the letter. It was a formal invitation to join the Portland Art Gallery in an amateur showcase. It also listed the five pieces of my work that were being shown. Wow. That was new.

But I wasn't going to go. I had to stay here with Finn.

Trixie set the box aside and took my hands. "You should go, just for a week. I promise you that I will read to Finn, and I'll call you every day to update you. Please, Riley, you need to do something for yourself. Even if it's only for a week."

I looked up at her, and I was torn. "Go," Trixie urged. "Visit your family, go to the show. You act like a person in mourning, but Finn's not dead. He'll wake up, and when he does, what do you think he'd say when he finds you've been glued to his side, pining your life away?"

She was right. I felt like a person in mourning. "Okay," I said quietly, making up my mind that a week couldn't hurt. A week away from Finn. I could do that.

"Yay, I'm glad!" Trixie practically squealed. She turned, bringing my present back to my lap. "I took the liberty of stealing your debit card and buying you a plane ticket. You leave in a week and a half." She hugged me, and it was like a slap in the face how much she reminded me of Libby. I hadn't seen Libby in forever. We texted and Facebooked constantly, but it had still been over six months since the last time we saw each other. Yikes. And now I was going to be in Portland.

Being in Portland also meant that I would have to see my family. There was no way to avoid it. If they heard I was in Oregon and didn't come see them, I would be disowned.

Without further procrastination, I called my dad and told him that I would be home in a couple of weeks. Then I called Libby and left a message saying the same.

That night, as I lay in my bed, staring up at the ceiling, I started to pray. I don't know what brought it on—aside from the intense loneliness and the knowledge that Finn waking up was out of my hands—but it helped.

When I fell asleep, I no longer felt like my world was dragging from day to day with complete and utter bleakness. For the first time in a long time, I felt little, persistent stirrings in my chest. It was new, and it took me a minute to realize what it was that felt so good.

Hope. For the first time, I had hope.

My remaining days in Michigan flew by, and that tiny ember of hope never left. On the last day, I read to Finn, kissed him on the cheek, and walked out. Putting my book in Trixie's locker in the staff changing room, I went home and packed.

As I sorted through my various clothes, I was overcome with the urge to pack some Hunting gear. It wasn't hard to acquiesce. I like having weapons available to me, even if I hadn't used them much in the last couple of months. So, sandwiched in between my clothes, I brought along a few of my least conspicuous items.

Then I walked out, never looking back. I drove to the airport, checked my bag, and climbed on the plane, unable to drown a weird, bubbling feeling in my chest. I was light, and I was giddy. Good heavens, I hadn't felt this good in months. Maybe Trixie was right, maybe I had been pining away at Finn's side. It wasn't like I was happy to finally be away from him. I just felt…excited. Like something big was about to happen.

Or maybe I had just been so emotionally stunted in my grim routine over these last few months that a little unknown freedom was going straight to my head. I was going to see my family, possibly Libby, and someone had decided my work was good enough to be in an art show. Yeah, that was probably where this excitement was coming from.

I even smiled at the flight attendant when he asked if he could get me anything. Wow. It felt like a completely foreign expression. Yeesh, I needed to get out more.

Upon landing in Portland, I realized I was wildly overdressed. While jeans, a turtleneck, a hoodie, and a jacket may have been standard wardrobe in Michigan, they were wildly unneeded in Oregon. I grabbed my bag from the slow rolling baggage claim carousel and hustled to a bathroom to change. I came out in jeans and a hoodie, and immediately became one with Portland. It was like I'd never left.

Having left my car in Michigan, I had to call a taxi. It drove me—while charging exorbitantly—downtown to a coffee shop. There I waited, knowing my parents would show up any minute. They had both jumped at the notion that I was coming home, and they'd insisted on picking me up. At first, I had been dreading the mandatory conversation on the car ride home. But as the clock grew closer to two, I started to get excited. I was going home. I hadn't been home in almost a year.

When my parents walked in, it felt like Christmas morning. Better than Christmas morning, in fact, because this Christmas had been rather dismal. I tackled them in bear hug, startling them with a rare display of affection. They gushed about having their youngest back home and very skillfully managed to avoid the topic of Finn quite admirably.

In fact, the entire drive, they managed to move from Libby to my brothers to work to school to my art without bringing up any mention of Finn. I didn't really notice it at first, just wanting to catch up with them. But in the small lulls in the conversation, I realized what was happening. They were trying to distract me. My normally silly, goofy parents were trying to keep me from thinking about Finn because they knew how much it hurt.

Tears filled my eyes, and I was deeply reminded just how lucky I was to have two parents that loved me so much. "Finn's still in a coma," I interjected, between one of my mother's anecdotes of Jake's girlfriend. I watched the frosty landscape pass by through the window as they fell into a shocked silence. "It's okay," I reassured them quickly. "I'm not going to pull a Bella Swan and collapse into a despondent heap."

Mom twisted in her seat, looking back at me with concern. I could see her watching me, but I didn't look away from the window. "We know, baby. It's just—" She didn't finish, but she really didn't have to. _We know how hard it's been for you_, I filled in. _We just feel that_ _it's not healthy for someone your age to be so serious and committed to a guy who might never wake up._

I turned away from the window, smiling at her brightly. "I don't want you to worry. I'm okay, really."

She smiled, and I could see that she was still troubled, but she turned back and murmured something to my dad. He said something back and reached for her hand. I stared at their entwined hands, resting on the console between seats, and wondered if Finn and I would ever have something like that.

"So what's new with you?" my dad asked casually, almost carefully.

I pulled myself out of the quagmire of my thoughts and kicked my brain into gear. "I was informed that there's an art show in Portland. They're showing some of my work." My parents exploded into cheerful congratulations, and I just shrugged. "It's an amateur art show," I rationalized, but they didn't seem to care.

"We always knew you could do it," my mom gushed. Actually her exact words upon being informed of my choice in college had been "Oh, honey. Are you sure? It's so hard to be a successful artist. What if you turn into one of those starving artists that fall prey to homelessness and illegal street art? "

Then, when I'd gotten the money from my biological father, it had been: "Well, now you can follow your dreams. We are so excited for you! Just remember, success doesn't happen overnight." My parents—forever the realists. I didn't mind, though. They had just been trying to keep my heart and dreams from being broken beyond repair.

_There's no helping that now_, I thought, watching the droplets of water run patterns down the condensation of the window.

I yawned, despite the coffee I had consumed a couple of hours ago. "I'm going to take a siesta. Wake me up when we get home?" With that, I snuggled down and closed my eyes. My parents talked, and their low, buzzing voices were soft and reassuring enough to make me doze.

It was weird. I spent two days at my parent's house. During that time, I barely even thought about Finn, except when Trixie would call. It wasn't like forgetting him; just…he wasn't the most important thing dominating my thoughts. It was nice, kind of.

Still, when the time came to leave, I wasn't too sad. It was hard to go from total autonomy to being surrounded by family who want to know what I was doing and spend time with me. I loved my family, but I also loved being free and by myself sometimes.

I said goodbye and hugged them again before climbing onto the bus back to Portland. It was a long ride, and there were several different transfers, but I didn't mind. No one talked to me, and no one complained when I pulled out a sketchbook and began to draw. On the page in front of me, a pair a hands came into existence. I shaded, erased, and tweaked lines. Soon enough I was looking down at my parents' hands, intertwined between the car seats. It struck something inside me, something bittersweet, and I flipped the sketchbook close in favor of staring out the window and letting my thoughts wander.

I meandered through a dozen meaningless topics, but somehow I always came back to Finn. My parents didn't understand why I was so emotionally attached to one guy. They didn't—couldn't—understand what Finn meant to me. Sometimes _I _didn't even know what Finn meant to me. I just knew that there was something. Something about him, something that I'd never felt for anyone before. It was different from thinking a guy was nice, and it went way, way beyond just sheer physical attraction.

Finn was everything that I was not. He was decisive and funny and intelligent. He was strong at times and gentle at others. He wasn't abrasive like I was, and he was probably the best fighter I knew. More than that, he helped people. Like most Hunters, he'd chosen to give up a normal life to fight monsters and save people.

Of course, he was a control freak sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. And he was definitely a slob when it came to keeping his car or motel room clean. He was chivalrous to a fault, and sometimes he drove me crazy when he didn't communicate as much as I'd like. Sometimes he teasingly made fun of my sketches, saying it was to keep me from getting a big head. Furthermore, he didn't really watch movies, and I constantly sounded like a complete idiot when I made references that went right over his head.

But I liked him. I liked him a lot, probably more than I've liked anyone in my entire life. The fact that he was a total dreamboat was only a plus.

When I finally arrived in Portland, I kind of understood what my parents were worried about. I had just spent multiple hours thinking about Finn. Maybe I was a little more obsessed than considered normal, or even healthy.

I climbed off the bus with a snort at that last thought. Hah. Normal. When had my relationship with Finn ever been normal?

Pinning my sketchbook to my side with an elbow and lugging my duffel along, I walked away from the bus station, finally back in familiar territory. I had three hours to find a hotel, find a dress, and get to the art show. I was kind of excited to stay at a hotel. I wouldn't come in covered in something else's blood, so there was no need for the customary—yet extremely seedy—discretion that motels offered.

The dress I wasn't so sure about. I owned exactly zero dresses. I'd never needed them, and Hunting wasn't exactly a propitious environment for formal wear. So that left me in a city full of shops, in need of a dress to get me through the evening.

Dumping my stuff at the hotel, I Googled dress shops and found one that was more of a stylish boutique. Hailing a cab, I made it to the shop with two hours and fourteen minutes until the show. When I told the horrified employees that I didn't even own a dress, they all collaborated and got me fixed up.

It was a soft blue color, and entirely too slinky and clingy for my taste, but they all made a big stink about it being perfect for me, so I bought it. I took it back to the hotel, and after battling my hair into soft curls, slapping on the bare essentials of make-up, and getting dressed, I got back in a taxi and went to the gallery.

I looked nice. I'd caught a glance in the mirror on the way out. I looked nice, but I didn't look much like me. I looked classy and gently elegant, not like I could pull out a silver knife and gank a monster. I also didn't look like I had a Glock hidden in my purse, but I did. Appearances are deceiving, after all.

Arriving early was a good idea. My professor showed up, breaking protocol to hug me. He did the whole obligatory apology about Finn thing and then swept me inside. As we walked, he explained to me that the gallery was arranging in a sweeping run. The theme was human emotion, so, from what I understood, it was basically set up in a large spectrum from lighter to darker emotions. My work was in lower half of the spectrum, tucked into a literal corner of angst and sadness.

After surveying my pieces, which actually hung together rather impressively, I was invited to walk around before the show started and look at some of the other stuff. I declined, unable to stomach chatting on and on about technique, subject matter, and other tedious social fluff. I got to my corner and I parked myself there, pasting a polite smile on my face when anyone came by to peek.

The one thing I loved about artists and gallery patrons, though, was the quiet study of pieces. Once the show had started, it was a steady hum of hushed activity. Mostly, people drifted throughout, and the happy side of the gallery buzzed with quiet conversation. The darker emotions, however, evoked a more pensive atmosphere, which was great for me. When people came to look at my work, they stared. They frowned, they studied, they felt. And they were quiet as they did so. It was glorious.

People passed in small droves, and then it slowed to a trickle. Finally, it wound down to just one or two silent lingerers. A woman walked up. I was looking at the picture I had drawn of one of the drowning victims of the serial killer. In the picture, the girl's face was upturned towards me, her eyes begging for my help. It chilled me, even though I was the one who'd drawn it.

As was my usual policy, I casually watched the woman out of my peripheral. She was wearing a nice dress. It was a balance between functional and fashionable, which I loved. But I made no comment, not wanting to invite a conversation. That was her job. If she felt it necessary to comment on my work, then, and only then, would I engage. It had worked well for me all evening.

"Interesting piece," she said, nodding towards the large drawing of Sam. His arm was resting on the back of a bench, and he was looking out—over what I knew to be the motel parking lot—with a distinct air of sadness. It was kind of eerie, and it always brought out melancholy in me, which I suppose was the point. I had been having a particularly dreary couple of days when I drew it.

I gave a polite nod in return, not really knowing what to say. I didn't want to thank her, making the assumption that "interesting" was a compliment. But I didn't want to ignore her, either. Social etiquette, so demanding. Her next words, however, blew social etiquette out of the water.

"It's not very often that you see a Winchester sit still long enough to emote."

I whipped my head to the right, startled. Piercing gray-blue eyes met mine. Strong cheekbones paired with a noble—borderline Roman—nose. A face that I would know anywhere. Holy crap. I was looking at an older, female version of Finn.

She saw my shock and the corner of her mouth turned up in a smirk. "What? You think I don't do my research on the tramp my son has been sleeping with?"

My jaw dropped, and I let out a completely mindless, unladylike snort. Finn and I had never actually slept together. Occasionally performed some shirtless First Aid and—oh gosh—shared a motel room, yes. Slept together, no. I could see how she thought that, though. Wow, talk about awkward.

Being called a tramp went right over my head, in lieu of the harsh anger burning through me. "He's in a coma. You never even came and saw him," I said very calmly through gritted teeth.

She tilted her head, almost curiously, not seeming too put off by my accusation. "You were there." Oh yes, because that made everything better. Her eyes narrowed, maybe in response to my obvious disgust at her answer. "I know who you are, Riley Stewart. He was in good hands. Besides, I've been looking for a way to wake him up, and I've finally found it."

My brain shuddered to a stop, and her icy eyes pinned me in place. "How far are you willing to go to save him?" she asked darkly.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. How far? That wasn't the question. No. In truth, how far wouldn't I go?


	9. As Promised

Alrighty, ladies and gents. Riley's newest adventure is up and running. I am so sorry that I haven't updated in forever. Life, busy. Blegh. Check it out if you are so inclined. Be warned, though, it's got a little more killing than the last few. Vampires and such. Can't be helped. Toodle pip! Hope you read it. :) -Wookie


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